Listen to Lewis Turco read his poem The Black Death
London, 1665
“I have a bubo, mum,” my daughter said
and raised her sleeve to show me. In the street
the bellman cried aloud, “Bring out your dead!”
The heart of me froze like a drop of sleet,
dropped into my bowel when my darling child
Raised up her sleeve to show me. In the street
the crier’s bell rang out both dark and wild.
The end of time opened like a flower,
fell into my bowel as my darling child
showed me her fatal wound. Our final hour
blossomed before my eyes in Satan’s garden,
for the end of time had opened like a flower.
I felt the heart in me begin to harden
against a Deity who could ordain
such an evil blossoming of Satan’s garden.
What were the sins that could have earned such bane?
What sort of Deity could so ordain?
“I have a bubo, mum,” my daughter said.
The bellman cried aloud, “Bring out your dead!”
The terzanelle titled “The Black Death” by Wesli Court, a.k.a. Lewis Turco, appeared originally in an essay titled “The Villanelle and Variants: An Overview” by Bryan Bridges in Trellis Magazine, summer, 2008. It is collected in The Gathering of the Elders and Other Poems by Wesli Court, www.StarCloudPress.com, September First, 2010, ISBN 978-1-932842, trade paperback, $14.95, 115 pages. All rights reserved by the author.
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