It’s the night before the battle
and the king sits in his car
blasting Morrissey and the Sex Pistols,
seeking the North Star.
(They called him that once, long ago,
when the dogwood was in bloom
and the maypole heaved with green’ry
beneath a swelling moon.)
A click: the television’s grayish square
spins looping coronations in the air.
Bent back unbuckled, armor snug
as a serpent’s unshed skin,
His Grace doth clean up pretty nice.
Through the gilt mirror runs a thin
crack like a frozen lightning bolt;
a line of coke floats glacially
upon its surface. His head throbs.
Saint of lost causes, pity me.
Backstage, the red queen mutters to herself,
mending the zipper on her tiger pelt.
He bites down—the fake blood flows
out of his mouth, more eloquent
than the eighty-eight hundred words
before it—every blandishment
with fingers crossed behind his back,
every eyelash-batting threat,
every love song to himself—
the tape skips—rewind the cassette—
—a rose-emblazon’d, Pythonesque wrecking ball
smashes like a beached whale through the fourth wall—