Victor’s Meditation
A hunchback rises there above the bells
But nothing in this scene is like the hour
Of stylized beauty in the Book of Kells
Bent over in a cell. He aches the power
Of hopeless love more cruel than the rack
And flogging. Ugliness is everywhere
Beneath him in that filthy almanac
Of evil, Paris. Broken in despair
He sees a hanging woman dressed in white
Suspended by her neck on hangman’s rope
And hurls the man who loved him from the height
To prove to priest and God there is no hope.
..There’s nothing beautiful. There is no trust.
He curls in her grave. They turn to dust.