The Cento: A Collection of Collage Poems

Compassion for Scarpia

95 AnnIe fInCh Compassion for Scarpia “Rain down, voluptuous stars! Tosca is burning with love!” (pulsing to stars as if she kept them shining “God forgives me” (pulsing with the hypocrisy of her faith) (He stalks in and the music stops to make room for the drums and horns and for his wide-topped florid boots) “He forgives me, he sees that I’m weeping.” (singing to them as if she kept them shining shining with the hypocrisy of her faith) (“I swore you’d be mine” strikes at the choir, the fallen angel’s bass so beautiful) “You clung to your love, agile as a leopard clung as agile as a leopard to your love and in that moment 96 that moment I swore you’d be mine, mine. Mine” “Finally mine!” (how will he bathe in compassion?) “Finally mine!” “That is Tosca’s kiss!” “Finally mine!” (in compassion, as in the waters of the pond?) “That is Tosca’s kiss!” Trembled “tutta Roma” (and all Rome trembled before him) This is her passion: “die!” “die! Look, it’s me, Tosca!” 97 (how will she bathe in compassion?) “now in death I forgive him!” (how will they bathe in the waters of that pond?) “Finally mine!” “now in death I forgive him!” (green mist settles on the battlements, on the thin harmonies of every flute) “Mario, Mario: “never have I loved life more” “I’ll close your eyes with a thousand kisses soothe you with a thousand words of love” When he is gone the same footsteps come plodding through the shadows; it is she at the edge of the dark and killing ritual. ...