First light. Second sleep
is over. Time to get
up. The day’s work
shall be long, I trow.
Dark water turns pale
from the washed hands
of a saint. But I am not
a saint, not yet.
Oxford at this time of year
bursts at the seams
like an ill-wrought doublet
on a fat man.
I fall asleep
at my book, little devils
talking me to the edge
of a dream. I dream of—
—a lady, her hands
and mine. It is neither
chaste nor unchaste.
I think such distinctions oughtn’t matter.
To be a good student
of the law, one must give
the devil his due
and not confuse Greek with Latin.
Galen wrote in Greek.
Perfect alphabet
for medicine,
all angelic incisions and vein-ends.
A Christian, I
sit contentedly on a soft
divan of pagan months and letters,
corrupting Caesar’s Latin. Let’s go a-caroling.
Midnight prayers—
which divinities work
in the hours of darkness?
The same ones that made cobalt paint.
As youth flees and
life rounds a bend,
I find I am not
so different from my two sisters.
I dream of a soldier hanged,
a soldier who bought his boots
from a boot-thief, a soldier who
marched down the cleanest London lane
and had been present at the pillaging of Rome
in 1527. In that loud, empty, ridiculous year
I had my portrait painted,
I had already been knighted,
and I began to find it more difficult to parse
the handwriting of Erasmus (the lines of his is and ls
as thin and sardonic as his famous smile),
because my eyesight was going, because I hadn’t
been careful with darkness and dead candles.
Indeed, for all my fur-coated success—
a large warm house with Flemish
tapestries lining the walls, a Carthusian monastery
in my patronage, the king’s favor,
the kindest wife, the brightest daughters,
and the curious distinction of having invented
a perfectly functioning language and alphabet
that no one in Christendom could speak—
yes, in spite of all these things that decorated my reputation,
I did not take very good care of myself
and felt older than I was.
I thought continually of death;
my mind sang medieval songs
to the tune of prison, birdcage, Charon’s boat.
(I realize now how presumptuous my sorrows
must seem to England’s poor,
dispossessed of their last consolation—illiteracy.
And I’m reminded of the morning prayer
said by Jewish men: Blessed art Thou,
O Lord, who hast not made me
a woman.) My troubled soul
untroubled itself in time,
and the year 1527 faded away, useless and toothless,
twelve more candles blown out.
It is only now, in the Tower’s witless womb,
that I remember that year again
and imagine myself before Holbein’s gaze once more
when suddenly the hanged soldier—
who bought his boots from a boot-thief
and had been present at the pillaging of Rome—
rips through the canvas with a wet sword.
Some epitaphs I’ve composed:
Here lieth MARGARET ROPER, incomparable daughter of an unworthy father,
who translated the wild words of the ancients
into measured prose, refuted many a falsehood,
and did not allow herself to be read like a book.
Here lieth ALICE MIDDLETON, most excellent of women, most patient of wives,
whose presence was like finding a white rabbit in a field,
whose soul was a multitude of flowers from Botticelli’s garden.
Here lieth KING HENRY, who, in spite of everything, was an able king,
a good master to serve, a fair and honest judge
on sunny days, and a mirror for his fellow princes.
Here lieth ANNE BOLEYN, who was neither chaste nor unchaste,
the first Queen of England to be heard singing
through an open window in the red light of dawn.
Here lieth THOMAS CROMWELL, blacksmith, soldier, and politician,
who never missed a trick and for that alone
shall have a shorter stay in Purgatory than most.
Here lieth MARTIN LUTHER, who, for all his fury, was still only a monk:
a monk who married a nun and kept his fireplace burning.
Here lieth THOMAS MORE, knight, who shall be thought mad in happier centuries.
Or admired, in more desperate ones.
Now that I am deprived
of words, I will tell you
what I really think.
Silence is a knife.
More than speech, more than ink,
silence is what makes the world,
the world. Silence is the string
that ties our waking days
together, the dark mask
we wear over our inmost
thoughts, as convincing in its artifice
as a jester’s grin.
Silence is the mistress
of learned man and mute alike,
from whose caress no child
escapes, in whose loins unwanted
secrets breed and teem.
Silence speaks more
than the most garrulous herald,
silence weaves more
meaning in its web than
any shining device.
Coeur loyal.
The most happy.
Loyaulte me lie.
Silence in servants
betokens steadfastness;
in lovers, treachery.
Some fanatical Protestants
name their children “Silence,”
and call them by that name
over and over, only to hear them
answer with bold, rude, hard silence.
Silence is a hairshirt
for the tongue, a thumbscrew
for the hand one writes with.
Silence is predestination,
silence is a closed mouth
at the Last Supper.
Silence is an idol
of dry brittle straw,
colored like gold
but of no worth,
prized only by fools
and their emperors.
To break silence, all you have to do
is name it.
Light interrupts
me. The last door
is opening for me.
In the pocket of my gown
is a rose made of red cloth,
some gentle words stitched
in gold thread on the petals.
From a friend, a well-wisher.
It’s touchingly nonsensical:
you and I well know,
of course,
that I can’t take it with me.