Equivalents

The boat was coming into view.
You could see it had no flag.
. . . No, that would not work.
Go to the heart of the island.
Forget about the preliminaries.
Start off with Prospero
and daughter Miranda,
the caged Caliban; 
then bring in Ariel,
not to be confused with another
Ariel, Sylvia Plath’s; the boat
was from Naples, not London.

He was writing to himself,
as always. That’s what’s hard,
he thought, having two voices
at least, if not three or four
or sometimes an entire crowd
in your head at the same time.
If someone knocked or entered,
you froze momentarily,
then kept on after crying out,
Come in! You continued.
Whoever entered stayed
until you finished, or left.

Today he would go back to read
Shakespeare again, the last
great play. Then he would think
of creating his equivalents,
he called them. They were of
that island he could call Hell,
but wouldn’t. That was like
resenting your station in life,
putting your head in an oven,
letting those who stay behind
take the rap for your actions.
That was no equivalent.

(26 April 2013) 

copyright 2013 by Floyce Alexander