The Outsider (Part VI)

This is a continuation. To start from the beginning, click here.

In the gathering dark, after the fire
And before the Chicken Kiev, when the hands of the clock
Mark the minutes of this walking death,
I Virgil, guide, living blind on the margins,
All used up now by life, by Him forsaken
In the gathering dark, by His Olympian indifference
Laid low, computer solitaire consoling the hours,
The author encased by drywall, stares in the mirror, shaves
His face, and roots for dinner among the cans.
In a closet tenderly packed
The sudden detritus of her life forever frozen,
In cardboard boxes are stored (in sealed plastic bags)
Clothing, photographs, jewelry, and letters.
I Virgil, all used up now by this soupy world
Tired of waiting, and got on my way—
I would go out to meet him.
My friend, ironic and detached, waves,
No sin-eater he, not greeting but beckoning,
One who compels obedience
In his death black suit and blood red tie.
The sun has moved on, as it always does,
He puts down his fork, it was bland and tasteless,
There is but one souvenir
Left to be put away, sweet relic.
Numb and dispassionate, he wrings it free;
A band of gold overcoming the unwilling knuckle;
On his finger now a sunken white band,
The empty gully his new companion.
(And I Virgil drenched in flame
Defied the so-called Master Architect;
Where I sat by the gentle Tecumseh weeping
And began my despairing death.)
Bathes himself in somber fuel,
And strikes the match, dispelling the dark . . .

She wilted and put a hand to her mouth
Disbelief flooding her face as he left;
Unable to stop the cruel looping mantra in her brain:
‘Do not go. I have had strange dreams.’
Grinds her temple with her fingers,
‘Not to me, O Lord, not to me’ it was said
In the misty rain of Lu Mountain, in the River Che.
(Curses the gathering darkness before her eyes.)
O Death death, I see nothing special
Within these four walls on West Pierce Street,
The emptiness of an open fist
And a table cloth and a bowl shattering on the floor
Hot sticky soup everywhere: where haughty Death
Insists to take with his bony touch
The life I have never loved so much.

For the next installment, click here.