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Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

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Margaret Whitaker

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Carlotta

With eyes grown dim
From the lustre of a fiery past,
When lean brown legs twirled
A stirring pirouette
And heels tapped in vibrant rhythm
To the strumming of an old guitar,
She picks her way with gasping breath
Across the sun-bleached cobblestones.
Her aged ankles buckle in protest,
Where once they would have thrown
A tantalising glimpse of twinkling toes
Paying proud court to lively castanets.
Beyond the distant church
Respectful of the Angelus,
She stops at last and, sighing,
Wipes a beaded brow.
Her lips, now dry and parched
Over withered, toothless gums,
Reflect the torrid heat,
Evoking old remembered passions
Of a thousand dreamless nights,
Devoted to the one who left her long ago.
Before his faded tombstone, kneeling,
She scatters limp blossom
Over the red baked earth,
And With gnarled fingers
Plucking at an ancient rosary,
Recalls her own crucifixion.

Page(s) 34

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