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2. Of Salome: On Death and Beauty

Bell, Marvin

I was not, in the beginning of time, a head on a plate.

I was a foot that wriggled and writhed to escape.

I curled my toes to kick the wall, and I carried the bruise.

I used my instep like the back of my hand.

That was then, in a protected shadow, which remains as it was.

The hand was the hand and the foot was the foot.

Elsewhere, the head and groin were interchangeable.

Tonight, I hold my life in my hands, and my hands are small.

What if I am asked to hand over my life in a week?

Tonight, in a week, a year, an hour-all the same afterward.

My head on a plate, and what will it bring at auction?

Salome liked it when I did what she said to.

Otherwise, we had what might be considered a falling out.

The guilt was not helpful and the condition inoperable.

I am tonight a pilgrim in a corridor of moonlight.

I, whose lot is the most one should ask, have learned a lesson.

I think of things formerly too terrible to contemplate.

And tell my friends, the fly and the spider.

The soup tastes like a sacrifice.

I have taken in mv belt.

I weary of carrying my head in on a plate.

If I were allowed to drink and laugh on the job.

But I have to carry my head in as if it were a set of jewels.

Eyes, of course, teeth, the cheekbones of appearance, the jawbone of discussion.

Others judge me by the resolve with which I continue to speak.