TODD HEARON
Caliban in After-Life
Prospero, what hollow art
makes human humane?
Excepting one, I can accept
the other. Neither a
deity nor its dog sits
court upon a question of
this sort. So answer,
Sorcerer. Conq ueror,
I
wait.
Wordless as
I
was when you
washed up heaving brine, in
ignorance of pity
I
pitied you, thin thing
the salt had scoured. Dry,
you wept then slept the ocean out
of mind. When it returned,
I
nested you, laid you in
Illy
la
i
r.
So was it there,
sequestered, out of thirst
your tongue put forth my first–
heard word?
Wiater
What sun could sear,
what sea-roar will erase
its acid from my ear?
Your daughter's laughter
as I played the pup,
lapping berries from her open
fist?-rhat, Master, was the best
relish I had had since Mother's mi lk.
And last. for it, roo, found
a word in your dire lexicon:
Ill/nicolls.
Admonished,
