Tragedy of a Lady

ACT 5. Scene 1.

Dunsinane Hill castle, ante-room.

[enter LADY MACBETH, a candle in hand.]

White nightgown, pale

     hands cannot comprehend silk

       sinking

into stone steps; hair

 framed like veins–

       coursing, a ductile night

            bent into black –you falter

      as a flame, alive enough

        to trace dead constellations

on wrists, palms. Skin

            punctured.

                   [look above.]

Dagger hanging,

      tip grazes throat

as if your lips remember

            how to grieve for burials–

men who could

             split

you open

       on a window; here is the art

               of women reborn:

you genuflecting,

                 them drinking to a husband

you have long poisoned.

[place candle on table. walk to closet.]

Fingers coil around lock

in anticipation

               –this is

            courage screwed taut–

yet you quiver, yet

            you pull the handle with

something heavier

              than conviction

                                  –come,

                   you spirits–

   cleanse a body absolved

by ambition; speak what

       your lord cannot fathom:

he was never your lord.

[walk about the room.]

                        Tell him

–give me your hand, my

lord–               not to hold, but to twist;

                        you rub hands and wash but

                           the holes persist and

               contort,

            blood from a crooked blade

            he plunged into bodies

                   that could break you.

            The Thane of Fife had

            a wife: where is she now?

                      Nightgown    creases,

               you await her awakening

on linens; a burial so sweet

    you could  taste it, so innocent

you could   belie it.

    Hell is murky–take his hand,

let him siphon the spots

on your skin–

          go to bed,

to bed.  Let him see you

     in linens, a blade he

could never brandish.

Go to bed.

     To bed.

[exit.]

With lines from Shakespeare’s Macbeth