THE CONVERSION OF THE LATE LESTER ELDRITCH
(Lost one love in the dust outside Jerusalem.)
Driven out about this scorching wind, glossy tear. Silk the plunge
we decant and succumb – slippery, and for acreage a flounder;
crisp of chiffon the land left by fathers about
a stir from true spectacle.
#2 [Near the bed, centre stage, looking at its occupant.] ‘Not a good time to travel this is, somebody should have warned him.’
#1 [Near the only window, stage right, open onto a luminous grey sky, disinterested.] ‘For what there’s left. Checked the other entrances?’
#2 ‘Cat-flap. Still jammed. Worst, vacuumed. Both sides. Obviously something is keeping us here. And before you ask, no, no significance for barricades: can’t be people’s plain understanding running this.’
#1 [Turns. Amused.] ‘Because there isn’t any! Tried feeding them? Feeling them? Tell me, what they’d say to you?’
#2 ‘Like our time over Swans Island? Please, you are in no position to tease.’
#1 [Reconciled.] ‘As if an open door will get us out of here, assuming that is now our purpose.’ [Pauses. Then, talking to himself.] ‘It comes with a zest this room… [Sneering in the direction of the bed.] Its lodger.’
#2 ‘When you think of it, it has its own logic. [Springs into action.] I say let’s move this guilt of a furniture around!’ [Walks out, stage left.]
Too, dived and decided for the waterfalls encircling our collars
off scent, gone for hours
exhaling the half-word she kept us promised to, such will soar the palace of
our names
to bring aloud walls to genuflect.
Mastered by heart’s portrait their painted opulence will sit to beg for
this white thin trace to ambush contemplative evening
mornings to corroborate.
#1 [Shouting.] ‘Think that will solve anything?’
#2 [From backstage.] ‘Think? No, but it will surely gift this morning with a new meaning.’
#1 ‘An Impromptu! Good thinking! All this paperwork will be the end of us, you know?’
#2 [Coming back.] ‘Questions! That’s our answer, we need to look for questions.’
#1 [Emphatically looking around.] ‘What? Shall I simply, ask around?’
#2 ‘Definitely sarcasm is not your forte.’
#1 ‘It’s called professional conduct.’
#2 ‘Parental residuum I’d call it.’
So to say,
in tweaks in squeezes
judges the scale, the gold amid her boarded market stool
deep and clammy. Long beloved is the lifetime a fire lasts through the night,
queue of coats, hats, one by one aligned
blessings from the Virgin Mary
gone pirouetting away, on cut-glass vaporized in narratives of Biblical sweat.
#1 [Still near the window, looking out.] ‘I believe it said acceptance to be the first step. [Pause.] Or was it last?’
#2 ‘To me it’s all the same vertigo of anaesthetics.’
#1 [Turns sharply. Start walking at pace towards the bed.] ‘Oh, he’s awake and aware alright.’
© Massimo Fantuzzi
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