It was a tropical landscape, much like Florida’s, which he knew.
(Childhood came blazing back at him.) They glided across a black
And apathetic river which reflected nothing back
Except his own face sinking gradually from view
As in a fading photograph.
Not that he meant to stay,
But, yes, he would play something for them, played Ravel;
And sang; and for the first time there were tears in hell.
(Sunset continued. Years passed, or a day.)
And the shades relented finally and seemed sorry.
He could have sworn then he did not look back,
That no one had been following on his track,
Only the thing was that it made a better story
To say that he had heard a sigh perhaps
And once or twice the sound a twig makes when it snaps.
“The Artist Orpheus” from NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by Donald Justice, copyright © 1995 by Donald Justice. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
