Second Dance

Note: This is the second poem in a set of 4 titled "Insanity Breeds Lowly Company." The first of these (First Dance) is posted here as well if you wish to read them as they were meant to be.

Second Dance


Platinum sunrise paints guilty streaks on shut eyelids
desperately begging me to start a new day. Though my
Egyptian cotton sheets and dove feather pillows
warm my body like a bridal virgin,
I open the windows to my discarded soul.
 
Ten eager faces wait to serve my every whim.
Their morning began countless hours earlier but
I am only aware of this in some long forgotten echo my
mind cradled that may that may have once
cared for the life of petty servants.
 
Fresh caviar and Indian tea are presented and sacrificed
to my morning palette and, not unlike clockwork, my
Mistress of Music
begins to gently stroke the keys of my grand piano.
Elegant waves of poetry drift from struck strings
as the modest mistress premiers the newest sonata
for my pleasure.
 
As the last chord dies away,
the distant whistles of Parisian robins continue their
constant improvisation (for my sake).
They serve as perfectly crafted transition
door closing behind my back
scalding water treated with salts from eight oceans
American roses, drifting souls, shift around me.
 
A single knock signals a plump beauty’s
entrance into this primal chamber.
She does her job in silence.
It pleases me.
I will never see her again.
 
Six dresses, six suits, six designers
replace the morning staff and I melt from the
beauty of my slender legs in a sparking indigo gown.
Mother and Father would think otherwise and so
an Armani suit shapes my Herculean figure into
something mere mortals dare witness.
 
At morning Mass I pray to the God of my
wealth and pleasure. His cross invigorates the
people to provide for the worthy.
I sense a feast tonight.
In my musings I notice the priest glance
nervously in my direction and suddenly my
hands feel sickeningly sticky
dripping, dripping,
and for some reason I wonder where the
pretty altar boy is.
 
A prince has duties. Serious meetings with
foreign ambassadors. Sculpting those necessary
bonds that keep the people alive.
I never liked the Austrian princess anyway and I’m
already being driven to The Castle.
 
Cranberry raisins,
delicate flesh serving decadent flesh and
supple dreams evolve my royal fantasies.
Oil can make even the common worthwhile.
 
I leave raw, shaken, and craving more.
I send for my doctor as I am escorted back
through the twisted highways of the palace when
my eye catches movement to my left, an
expansive, absurdist depiction of Winter’s lake but
no longer empty and obscure.
 
A small figure runs madly out from the
surrounding wood and before comprehension enlightens

I slip on the ice.