April poem no. 8

I wrote this poem after seeing one of my favorite operas. Anna Netrebko was in it, and she was just glorious. Of course, her partner, Romeo, wasn't so bad himself. Even though I knew how sad the ending would be, I still rooted for their love to survive all the way through.

By the way, the class assignment for this poem was to write something Wild, Dark, and Passionate. Did I succeed?

Romeo and Juliet’s Wedding Night

The black drapes open
and on center stage is a bed
covered in heavy red quilts and pillows
with a red satin cloth sweeping up
into the rafters from the headboard.
The bed covers and white sheets crumple in heaps
by the bodies of the two lovers on the top,
then underneath,
then on the pillows at the foot of the bed,
then on the floor
as they wrap their arms and legs around each other,
first one on top and then the other,
never separating as they kiss and hug and stroke each other
until almost daylight and it is time to part.
But still they don’t part.
While he pulls up his trousers, buttons his shirt, tucking it in half way,
she, wrapped in a sheet,
her long dark hair covering her breasts like a halter,
her arms out to him,
kneels on the bed,
pleading, “Don’t go, not yet,”
calling to him to come back
crying in full soprano voice,
“It’s not light yet.”
And he turns around and looks into her eyes.
His tenor voice roars,
“Yes, I’ll stay,”
and he tears off his clothes again
leaps back onto the bed again
pushes her back down
and enfolds her in his arms — again.


At daybreak, finally getting up,
picking his clothes off the floor,
he dresses, this time for good.
He pulls her to him,
crushes her body against his
and jumps over the balcony
to the ladder.
He begins to climb down and stops,
looks back up at her on the bed,
the new light glow on her pale face.
He raises one hand to her.
She runs out to the railing,
Leaning, reaching, stretching her arms out to him,
until she almost falls over,.
Their fingers touch once more
before he climbs down and runs from her,
before the full morning light discovers them together
on this their wedding night.
And, we all know,
but don’t want to know
that this was their last night together
alive.