2 June 2007 | Vol. 7, No. 2
A Flock of Iagos Waiting in the Wings
On a bridge in Indianapolis
I'm getting covered with coils of snow
like George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) in It's
a Wonderful Life before he wishes he
was never born and then is swallowed
whole by an alternate universe
like a snake unhinges its jaw and admits
even the bones. So, sans George, the ursine
winter took his brother's life, the druggist
went to prison for dispensing rat poison
instead of aspirin and no kindly bank
offered affordable mortgages, so the town
was constricted (financially) then choked
out by cheap neon from the luminous
vices. Every time I watch the film my heart
feels like Lucifer in a tree, when I realize
how, just because George reneges on his wish,
this whole other Earth will be erased,
the decent man turned snake-oil salesman
will lose the brief venom of visual exultation
of a Live Girls sign, high on gin
when George is born again. I read this article
about some scientists who theorized
twenty ways the world might end,
and the last way was: Someone wakes up
and finds it has all been a dream. Yes, this trick
is cheap soap opera tripe, but who says
we live in an expensive universe? On NOVA
I saw the story of a man with a condition
called the Capgras delusion who believed
all his loved ones were carbon-copy imposters.
He wasn't frightened; he didn't think his parents
were reptiles in rubber suits or Iagos waiting
in the wings, rubbing their elderly hands;
they just weren't them. He even referred
to himself as the other David. I'm standing
on a bridge in Indianapolis watching the legless
moonlight, the legless snow, snake
through the wind, worried, the marriage might
carry off the ether that holds us down.
In the winter, this is a humorless city,
and behind me cars strike through the slush.
I'm not thinking of doing anything drastic;
I'm just watching the light from the nearby power
plant occasionally coil in a divot of water,
shine like a scale, and then disappear.
About the author:
Frank Montesonti's poetry has been published in Black Warrior Review, Poet Lore, AQR, Barrow Street, Spork, and Cream City Review, among other magazines
For further reading:
Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 7, No. 2, where "A Flock of Iagos Waiting in the Wings" ran on June 2, 2007. List other work with these same labels: poetry, editors' select.
