“Marilyn” (excerpt)
by Ooka Makoto
Written shortly after the death of Marilyn Monroe
Death:
a mirror that
turns the film backward
–
The sweep of her eye no
longer reaches the dream’s crystal forest.
In the distance,
where the dim flames of death
carry her bed
will she be met by a
gentle white elephant or
a closed lead window?
Hair softly undulating, she
lies now rigid as a washboard
on a dark mirror in which still
quivers a scalpel.
But no scalpel can reach the soul’s truth.