Superstitions

Surgeon & alchemist prepare grimy instruments;
  the priest prays the rosary.
We’ll make the night like new, surgeon says, clean it of dark.
  Numerologists bicker
like a colony of cicadas in high summer.
  June makes meaning unruly.
The moon fell from the sky but left a reflection in
  the swamps of Ireland, the dead
dusts of Mexico where the Viceroy & his kinfolk
  resplendent in starched collars
drown in silver, & even in Germany’s fairy
  forests. A knife salutes flesh:
the night’s ugly mug yields to the prettifying blade
  in the surgeon’s hands. Too black,
too black is the night! God will save antiquity’s blondes
  & make them into new moons.
Crystal by crystal, the alchemist conjures beauty
  from nothing. He knows what is
woman: an angry piece of chaos to be caressed
  into a nightingale or
an orchid. He can tell you what lies in the number
  thirteen, why it’s unlucky,
what seven has to say & why white crows bring good luck.
  In this city of orchids
no woman is safe. Every bridge is a bridge of sighs.
  Every street might cave in &
every man thinks himself a royal physician to
  the Dowager Queen of Hearts.
Her womb is infested with flowers & her long legs
  are much too long & lively,
her eyes roam wherever they please & that is why Her
  Majesty lies sick in bed,
we must change the wallpaper in her bedchamber from
  red to black so as not to
imbalance her humors, & we must draw the curtains
  & cover the windows with
chalk! Thus their fancy runs foaming at the mouth. Police
  & French dragoons in blue hats
rip the night from its post-surgical opium sleep.
  The King wants an audience
with the newly-made stars, the devilish night’s fresh face.
  Have they replaced its voice, too?
The priest said his best prayers as the alchemist was
  adorning night with crystals,
replacing the stars with singing mechanical Turks,
  putting sonatas in their
mouths. Wooden-limbed Christ looks on like a fly on the wall,
  his wounds lovingly rendered.
On the opposite wall a bare cross. Candles flicker
  over this rivalry of
form & content, letter & spirit, body & blood.
  Which doctrine dances tonight?
The King twirls the Queen on the chessboard floor of the church.
  The night is his new mistress.
Her blank face that sings with a thousand sad arias
  refutes all theology;
maybe there’s some merit after all in heresy.
  No longer fashionable
to turn to necromancy for one’s dynastic strife.
  Prophecies are all the rage.
So is dissecting the calendar & the psalter.
  Try your hand at it & see.
The numerologists were all executed for
  their presumptive predictions
regarding the marriage of the Princess to the Sun.
  The surgeon, the alchemist,
  & the priest were knighted.

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