Posted by Atticus on July 19, 2004, at 11:51:13
Brittle
I sat, motionless,
Illuminated by the cellophane-blue light
Cast by the black-and-white television screen.
Reflections of actors darted and danced
Across the cavernous black pupils
Of my unblinking eyes
So dilated by medications
That the irises ringing the glassy, dark circles
Were reduced to pale blue eclipsed suns.Engines coughed violently
And sputtered to life amid dense fog,
As first one propeller whirled to life
And then its twin.
Rick told Ilsa they'd always have Paris
And for the thousandth time,
Their doppelganger images,
Projected onto human eyes
That had taken on the look of polished ebony,
Wavered and blurred
As I felt the familiar salty sting
Of eyelashes painted with 3 a.m. tears.I glanced from the ghostly images
Of those long dead
To the small piece of yellowed newspaper
Clutched between my restless fingers.
A photograph there captured
A young bride and groom,
Their eyes gleaming with the bright promise
Of rich, exciting lives awaiting them
Beyond the borders of the picture,
Of the world laid at their feet.We were so young, I thought,
So utterly fearless in that frozen moment,
Alyssa's hair forever catching the sunlight
As a single unruly blond curl
Dangled from the tiara of fresh flowers
Crowning her head.
But an illness
That seemed both merciless and unbeatable
Had later stolen the groom's Cheshire grin,
And the bride, her bouquet long wilted
Alongside her dreams,
Had tearfully left,
Finding herself married to a stranger
Who had not been present at the altar.
We would never have Paris.I held up the fragile slice of newsprint,
Crumbling at the edges from the acids
In the paper, and wondered again,
As Rick strolled down the tarmac
With Captain Renault at his side,
How something once so bright and white and new
Could be transformed
Into a shred of tattered papyrus,
So faded, so ancient, so brittle.
-- Atticus
poster:Atticus
thread:367744
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20040320/msgs/367744.html