Monk’s Last Night and Modigliani’s Lady
Monk plays his last note
on the last track on the
last return to the bridge
in “Off Minor”
and again turn in
the chair in a big room
full of computer parts
too see exactly no one there,
only a print of long necked Modigliani lady
tilting her head to the side,
as if coyly urging me to
scream a little, play piano some more,
find another record
to play and fill in the spaces
between the pages
of the novels whose stories.
I imagine, confront their
heroes with much the same
dilemma and the variety of solutions,
“It’s all or nothing
and forever is a long time”
is what I hear myself mumbling?
as I turn off all the machinery,
pace the carpet with the cordless phone.
your number rings for the
third time, and now the fourth,
there’s the fifth time, and
nothing from that,
I put down the phone
and pick up a work file,
a bunch of applications
to be sorted through,
scrutinized, tortured with an
eye that reads only bad news,
every question I ask is a set up,
the trap door I’m leading
them toward, screams and
whimpers follow as they fall
to the alligator pit, you didn’t want
to work here really, did you,
and nothing’s been done
about the space junk whose orbits are
disintegrating, nothing has been detailed
about the lack of Limbo contests
in Nova Scotia, the news that makes me
the sickest is that
so few people remember
Question Mark’s real name,
c’mon, you know,
that “96 Tears” guy.
remember?
Modigliani’s swan necked beauty
still smiles, teases with sighs of
future nicknames, says in
a language heard only
when the fever is high
and the medicine primes you
for the deep folds of slumber,
“lie down and stop thinking for
a spell, everything that hasn’t been done will
be waiting for you when return …”
