Be My Bride
with lines from Samuel Beckett’s personal correspondence
Is Suzanne her name, the thoughtful lady
who made new curtains,
while lover Guggenheim made only scenes?
You are fond of her, dispassionately
and she is very good to you
but there is no knowing how long it may last
a fear
creeps into you, a Beckettien dilemma?
A few beads of pespiration fleck her pale and oval face
it looks stern determined
Marinated in silence like the edges
of twin knife blades
your eyes tail her willowy figure —
chestnut hair, grey eyes
a silk dress flaking in phosphorescent blue
a flowered cotton bag cankered with pears
a jug of cranberry juice wobbling
from left to right, side to side
Do you still feel pain in your chest?
You fumble for a cigarette, quickest cure for solitude
her voice intrigues
a fragment of your heart it lingers, on
and on
You’ve pardoned the tramp, a pimp
who pierced your overcoat, missing
the lung (and the heart)
by a hair’s breadth
In time to come, her surprise visit makes up
for the physical pain
a passage opens it is a turning point
settling down, perhaps ?
Shuffling, you sit up in the hospital bed and browse
the pages of Murphy, your unfinished manuscript
Its opening phrase, The sun shone…
