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Peter Quint, At His Excruciation
[after Henry James' tale, "The Turn Of The Screw"]
". . . Concealed imaginings . . ."
---Wallace Stevens, "Peter Quince At The Clavier"
Your lover died---pregnant with your next bastard.
Yet, when you had been told, you said no more
than one word, and the harshest profanation
one could have chosen at that moment, "Whore."
Such callous disregard you have well mastered
in your jackbooted, leathered, dominance.
But you have preyed upon our ladies once
too often, and my daughter is too young
to recognize the lies your smooth, glib tongue
has ladled. Sought consent?---no, still coercion
when brought to bear with such polished persuasion,
much practiced to the uttermost evasion
of truth in the advance of your perversion.
This night's events will likely take your breath
away (what a bon mot) until your death
you beg. A stone's collision with your skull
will bring the public verdict of a fall---
one of those random, fatal accidents.
Other remaining marks as evidence,
will not be noted by our coroner,
to bring the whole affair to its conclusion
without an evidentiary confusion.
To this process, all of us, here, concur
to be rid of a damned, marked predator,
whose evil our society will spurn
as this last screw commences its slow turn.
