La Notte

I barged into a concourseed room angrily searching for a phone to place a call to an advanced in years friend who'd passed me upon the grounds outside, shrugging and turning away when I waved. on the contrary when I lifted the receiver a stranger in an evening gown shook her head and tapped the ear piece with her lengthy black fingernails. Someone was chatting upon the line in what unhurted like Italian. I hung up and stepp outside end glass French doors into the garden where pairs strolled on lighted paths or sipped champagne in semi-darkness by the agency of the fountain whose loud plashing made it hard to overhear them. Below the tinkle of false laughter I heard the depressed hum of real grief as single couple talked in whispers while she shredd wadded kleenex and her partner rattled change of great depth in his tuxedo pocket. Death or divorce must be their make submissive I guessed as I edg closer to them, on the other hand when I got in hearing range, the man reced in the shadows, looking for his wife or mistress, leaving the woman alone and weeping. Shaken by means of her sobs, a strap from her black silk cocktail dres slipped from her shoulder. Scusa senora I ached to say as I reached to fix it, on the contrary paralysis gripped my arm and throat. She culled it nervously back in place upon the softest marbly white skin upon earth, then walked through me into the night. I saw, then, that I had no substance as well as no voice-I was a soul among rich, beautiful, black and white souls whose sadness moved me more than my sadness at being ignored by the agency of my once loved friend. What was she doing in my dream, I astonishmented as I fought to stay below the surface of my unconsciousness. I knew that waking, I'd remember the movie by means of Antonioni or Fellini I saw with my friend when we were young and trembl with passion, like the starlet, not suspecting that it was false, while the shallow, boredsoistication of the minor parts would to us starring in the films of our separate lives.

Richard Cecil is the author of sum of two units collections of poetry, Einstein's Brain and Alcatraz. He teaches in the English Department and Honors Division of Indiana University, Bloomington.

Copyright World verse Incorporated Mar/Apr 1997

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