O, Abyss.

This poem was written as the second 15-liner for my Creative Writing Class. It could be seen as a companion to a much earlier (and more hopeful) composition about this same individual, whose sobriquet I chose far before I conceived of the subtext of this poem. Ophelia is a real person whose eyes really are silver bullets.


L’Inconnue

Ophelia wakes from a dream of drowning
and is perplexed to find that her skin has wrinkled –
was it true? Time and time again she forgets
Who and Where she is
between bed and breakfast, baffled
over How and When she metamorphosed –
What has she become? and Why,
she implores, must she leave the solace
of her room, her blue chair, her Chopin
and her towering portrait? Graced by the tempered
silver-bullet eyes of her now-tarnished youth,
the painted figure absently surveys itself, aged
and all but lost in the desolate
and exquisitely infinite depths
from which there will be no return.