along shaking his Judas
coin in my old battered mug.
Such a pretty ringing it made in
the echoing canyons, on the stairs,
in the night, high above Positano and the
crash and sigh of the sea, as the tide consummated
the desire of water to pound the earth into submission.
At
last,
pausing
to catch my
breath, I saw
a candleflame leap
up off in the darkness.
It was in a handsome ruin,
a place of high granite walls
matted with wildflowers and ivy.
A vast entryway looked into a room
with a grass floor and a roof of stars,
as if the place had been built, not to give
shelter from the natural world, but to protect a
virgin corner of wildness from the violation of man.
Then
again it
seemed a pagan
place, the natural
setting for an orgy hosted
by fauns with their goaty hooves,
their flutes and their furred cocks.
So the archway into that private courtyard
of weeds and summer green seemed the entrance
to a hall awaiting revelers for a private bacchanal.
He
waited
on spread
blanket, with
a bottle of the
Don’s wine and some
books and he smiled at
the tinkling sound of my
approach but stopped when I
came into the light, a block of
rough stone already in my free hand.
I
killed
him there.
I did
not kill
him out of
family honor
or jealousy, did
not hit him with the
stone because he had laid
claim to Lithodora’s cool white
body, which she would never offer me.
I
hit
him with
the block of
stone because I
hated his black face.
After
I stopped
hitting him,
I sat with him.
I think I took his
wrist to see if he had
a pulse, but after I knew
he was dead, I went on holding
his hand listening to the hum of the
crickets in the grass, as if he were a
small child,
off after fighting sleep for a very long time.
What
brought
me out of
my stupor was
the sweet music
of bells coming up
the stairs toward us.
I leapt
up and ran
but Dora was
already there,
coming through the
doorway, and I nearly
struck her on my way by.
She reached out for me with
one of her delicate white hands
and said my name but I did not stop.
