Not the Bathing Tank at Madras: A Romance

The morning’s mail rises up the stairwell

with its simple breakfast; postage from Gambia

rivaling the khaki toast and jam, pomegranate

for importance both of paint

and shrinking perspective. The orchid goes

nervous in its stringy waist

for the master does not answer

Gertie’s repeated knocking. Her husband

rests a wooden ladder

against the evidence of black glass;

making a mask

with his large hands against the new sun,

he peers into the locked room

tapping on the window with an appropriate

rhythm that reminds him

of haying bells. He then begins his descent

wondering if with old Harold dead

will the younger master

leave him to starve

out among the rocks of a yawning heath.

His good foot, which is only middling today,

is testing the air

for a ladder rung or the untimely lawn

while he begins to fall

toward a railing of iron lilies and javelins.

The orchid on its pewter tray

screams waking old Harold

who farts so loudly

that Gertie begins to laugh and cry

from her hallway,

now greeting the unlikely Lord

who opens the door to his cool dark tank

as if it were a solemn medieval lake.