Pieter’s Muse
There’s a chasm in my soul where withered, clutching sticks curl round my heart and enjoin me;
Let me show you the sights I have seen.
I prepare my sables and oils. From His finger to my brush, Death guides my hand tonight and the strokes appear like slashes on a ham.
Inexhaustible it comes, an oily flow from the Abyss, numbing, embalming, replacing.
‘What shall I call this one?’
The Triumph of Death.
Home Sick
‘Let me in,’ a pleading voice says; a compelling suggestion.
‘Selene?’ Mother croaks, ‘I hear Selene.’
‘Hush, Mother, save your energy, it’s no one.’
Get better, Mother, you can’t go, too.
‘Let me in,’ another familiar voice coos. Splintered nails scratch the door; prying, testing. My brother’s entreaty sounds so reasonable.
‘Is that Jarius?’ Mother’s face, a bruised Jupiter, sweats, blooming chancres.
‘Rest, Ma.’
But she’s passed.
Later: Scritch-scratch
‘Let me in,’
Hush, mother.