He
wears a mask, O swear I am a saint.
He,
a pilgrim, and now his sin erased.
Stolen
kiss, he would be absolved in faith,
and
though unmoving, I would not be faint.
For
at this grand feast hall of my parents,
there
is no masked dance except noble dance
of
Capulets and their guests, in one glance
I
could assess their numerous talents.
I
stand in a room no Montague would dare
enter,
for this long-standing feud would not
end,
stirs up dissention in Verona.
I
dance, whirl, coming close enough to stare
at
Paris—the one I blindly could not
marry. I would rather have a love knot.
I
am only thirteen, and though naïve,
I
have kissed the one I love, now knowing
love
eternally—in one boat rowing,
behind
a pillar, mysterious, brave.
No
offer, except that sin be removed
from
my dull lips: I kiss you once again.
But
who might you be in this vaulted space?
I,
closing my eyes, that heaven be moved,
that
I would not be anarchy-tainted,
but
if only to know your name; my nurse
shall
tell me what I ask, I now implore.
For
I am but a nightingale, sainted,
winnowing
the dark on the Holm oak’s purse,
its
wealth, the wealth of Verona’s waxed floor.
Romeo
in black mask, my enemy,
a
Montague no less, nurse enunciates,
and
yet our flame-held love hallucinates
from
enmity to righteous purity.
This
kind of reverence, throated passion,
has
been my crime, for I am now outcast,
tiptoeing
in the silence that you fast
without
me, hunger-stricken in fashion.
Left
in noxious blasphemy, I feel sea
on
stone against religion’s enamelled
calling—its
staid followers to renounce
idolatry:
Romeo has seen me
and
all his poignant affection channeled,
and
yet this one love I could not announce.
That
night, I stepped on the stone balcony;
the
nightingales were chanting. Then the same
wept—I
wished for him to renounce his name:
in
one bold space, his voice commanded me—
“Juliet,
it is I, your Romeo.”
And
in his hand—a silver rose, his hair,
as
if it acquiesced by moonlight’s air,
his
hand, flailing for my aquiline nose.
I
watched him in the garden under night:
I
seethe lone, from stately Capulet’s house,
that
I should be forced to marry Paris,
he
with whom I have no blinded delight—
it
is the darker Romeo I love,
it
is the mysterious force of fate.
With
chestnut mane tumbling down my shoulders,
and
my white wool apron tucked away, get
the
friar with myrtle in his basket
to
marry us, while rejecting of verse,
as
villains in crime, we would, in secret,
be
wed. We would carry thorned-blood roses,
as
briny ocean marries rock, lap shore,
and
lily-youthful vows we’d not regret.
It
was on his way home that my husband
encountered
a street fight and battled kin,
and
when his noble friend was stabbed to death,
my
cousin’s blood red-flowed into the sand.
O
majesty Verona, my cousin
was
dear to me, my tears, twined laurel wreath.
Under
a spray of juniper berries,
I
am outlined against the star-crossed night,
while
the Montagues and the Capulets fight
in
the street as ardent adversaries.
Raising
words as violent rapiers, swords
subtle;
while only a youth, I perceive
that
I may use a word swiftly, conceive
of
a future to work deftly towards.
What
is this lark singing sweetly I hear?
What
song could bend with morning to entice?
To
speak a word gives it meaning in jest;
could
the fates be re-written by my care?
The
quill beneath my hand was cool as ice
to
mother: I would not marry Paris.
O
sorrowful Verona, my husband
climbed
a cloth ladder to my bedroom while
banished
from you for murder: cousin’s bile
mixed
with the dust of russet boot-shaped land.
We
embraced until morn and when the last
nightingale
sang, he fled over the ledge
of
the balcony. We gave solemn pledge
to
meet again, like statues in gold cast.
Morning
I was to wed Paris, they found
me
dead, as by the friar’s herbal aid
I
did drink tincture. I feigned death, but stealth—
Romeo
heard, and rushed to my sealed tomb.
There
he drank an apothecary’s made
poison’s
death; I awoke—then stabbed myself.
Emily Isaacson
