I taste Othello in a cup of coffee
and Desdemona in a bit of toffee.
I can feel Iago trickling off me.
Down I pour the dregs into the drain.
It tastes Italian. Shakespeare must have meant it.
The rule of meter—how he slyly bent it!
(And did the villain afterwards repent it?)
The words beat a tattoo into my brain.
Emilia’s smile of all was the most fleeting.
Good Cassio was warmest in his greeting.
Winter in Venice: all the snowflakes bleating
like orphaned lambs without their mothers’ milk.
The stage stands empty, the mummery long ended…
My thoughts are flying to places unintended.
Shakespeare, please tell me, will my heart be mended?
He smothered her upon a bed of silk.