A. Y. Winters

From “Monodies”

WHEN Blake’s mother died,

He got up out of bed

(He was an invalid)

And closed her eyes and smoothed her hair;

And took the pillow from beneath her head,

And drew the sheet across her thin clear face,

And left her there.

The little butler scudded through the gloom—

A frightened cockroach.

Blake cornered him

To give him orders. And he: “At what time did she die?”—

The last word jerked out

With a placating pained grimace.

Great difficulty. His head jerked about

Before Blake in the dusk, febrile, dim.

Blake’s small too-fragile body twitched.

His transparent feminine face

Quivered slightly, froze back into place.

His sister’s sobs, half checked by the gloom,

Staggered, drunken, down the hall.

This was all.

Then Blake went back into the twilit room

Where the candles struggled vaguely with the dusk.

He drew back the white sheet from the white face.

His bathrobe fell in cerise fold on fold

Above it, fever-blotches on the shadow.

He was tired and weak and cold.

He stared at the clear face as into a mirror,

His features—a curious mirror, Death!—

Frosted and uncertain at his sudden intruding breath.