Death of an Actress
First putting off the process for a week, Enlisting her two sons she drove to see That home, expecting rough indignity, But finding it well-stocked and oddly clean. Then came release (as therapists might say) As she worked through, though captive in a trance, Old tarnished sets of Anatole France, Tea services, and icons, jewels and brass. Until the boys first came across the jar With milky waters in whose innards bobbed Her mothers dentures, then at last she sobbed— Pearl keepers of a cave where horrors lurked. The source of all denouncements: ‘slut’ and ‘whore’ That were so much a fixture of her youth. Half-slurred mid drunken speech that was in truth Resentment at her being there at all. That woman's fury, fragile as she was, When doctors took her teeth by middle age. A lonely, spoiled figure on the stage And then a daughter and the whole thing blurred. Strange words poured out, old fairy tales, she knew So much by heart to easily delight. Long Russian poems that she would recite, Songs of Bogatyrs to heal and soothe. But no, the witch was dead and she could grieve And spare her boys that adolescent spell. These teeth and gums, a conduit to hell, Inert at last inside a crystal shell.