Joanna was a rusty film canister
rattling in a cardboard box,
 
satin costume ripping, a crime
on stage. The last time I saw her
 
she was wearing velvet, the color
of moss after rain. I set the table
 
not knowing it would be our last
time together. We played Chinese
 
checkers, cooked turkey. After
our third flute of champagne the bomb
 
wrapped around her heart ran
to zero. I heard Mozart, falling
 
water, a screaming monkey, something
from Stravinsky,. The cracking of dry
 
log lusting for flame. She poured herself
out, gravy from the boat. Joanna began
 
her monologue, a burst of privacies.
Such deplorable offenses! Affairs
 
with character actors & stunt men. 
The domineering father despised

but always longed for. His salt & pepper

side burns, the horse whip he used to keep
 
her in line. Too many bit parts
until her life was a sequence of scraps
 
& chards. Oh the loneliness of commercials,
melancholy of the cutting room floor.
 
Joanna was all tone & vibration. Pomegranates 
splitting, frantic clacking of a kitchen whisk,
 
cracking of dry log lusting for flame.
Then her abrupt withdrawal. Candle 
 
snuffed. “You’ve seen too much,
I’ll rid myself of you,” she cried without a trace
 
of grief & in a commanding stage
voice sharp enough to shatter bone.