I was the source of energy, and all
the jails and sheriffs could not hold me back.
I had stayed strong. Finally, I was free.
But as I stood there gloating, gradually
the darkness and the walls closed in again.
Sensing the power melting from my arms,
I realized the energy I felt
was just adrenaline — the phony high
that violence unleashes in your blood.
I saw her body lying on the floor
and knew that we would always be together.
All I could do was wait for the police.
I had come home, and there was no escape.
HAUNTED
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” he said. “Such nonsense.
But years ago I actually saw one.”
He seemed quite serious, and so I asked.
It happened almost forty years ago.
The world was different then — not just for ghosts—
slower, less frantic. You’re too young to know
life without cell phones, laptops, satellite.
You didn’t bring the world with you everywhere.
Out in the country, you were quite alone.
I was in love with Mara then, if love
is the right word for that particular
delusion. We were young. We thought we could
create a life made only of peak moments.
We laughed. We drank. We argued and made love.
Our battles were Homeric — not Homer’s heroes
but his gods, petty, arrogant Olympians
thundering in their egotistic rage.
Mara was brilliant, beautiful, refined.
She’d walk into a room dressed for the evening,
and I would lose a breath. She seemed to shine
as movie stars shine, made only of light.
And did I mention she was rich? And cruel?
Do you know what it’s like to be in love
with someone bad? Not simply bad for you,
but slightly evil? You have to decide
either to be the victim or accomplice.
I’m not the victim type. That’s what she liked.
I envied her sublime self-confidence.
She could freeze someone with a single sentence,
too witty to be rude but deeply wounding,
impossible to deflect or forget.
If I sound slightly bitter, please understand,
it is myself I now despise, not Mara.
She simply recognized what I desired.
Her uncle owned a house up in the Berkshires,
not just a summer house, a country manor,
three stories high with attics, basement, turrets,
surrounded by great lawns and sunken gardens,
hundreds of wooded acres whispering wealth.
We came up for a few days in late autumn,
driving through bare woods under a gray sky,
the landscape still, no birds, barely a breeze,
hushed as the hour after heavy snowfall.
The house had been vacated since September.
I had imagined it as dark and gothic,
cloaked in shadow like something out of Lovecraft,
but the decor was opulently cozy,
a proper refuge for a Robber Baron,
stuffed with objets to certify his status,
though slightly shabby from a century’s use.
The art was grand, authentic, second rate.
Florentine bronzes, Belgian tapestries,
carved stonework pried from bankrupt Tudor manors,
and landscapes by the minor Barbizons.
Nothing quite fit together. I suspect
sumptuous excess was the desired effect,
a joyful shout to celebrate success—
good taste be damned — let’s just indulge ourselves
and revel like a child who greets his playmates
by emptying his toy chest on the floor.
What fun is wealth if no one notices?
Mara seemed to think so. What did I know?
I’d never seen the rich up close before.
While Mara showered, I explored the cellars,
searching a maze of mildewed storage rooms
until I found a faux medieval door,
flanked by a pair of somber wooden saints.
You should have seen the wine her uncle owned—
six vaulted rooms stocked with the great estates,
bin after bin of legendary names,
Château Margaux, Latour, Lafite-Rothschild,
a prodigal accumulation formed
on such a scale he could have entertained
Napoleon and half his Grande Armée.
I chose two bottles of pre-war Petrus
That probably cost as much as my month’s rent.
Clutching their dusty necks, I closed the door,
And told the saints, “I could get used to this.”
They didn’t condescend to give an answer.
That night we drank in the high paneled library,
a great inferno blazing in the fireplace.
Naked Diana stood in tapestry
above us on the wall. Below her, Mara,
stylishly overdressed, refilled our glasses.
Resplendently the room reminded us
that beauty always bears a heavy price.
White tiger skins lay stretched across the floor.
Martyred Sebastian twisted on a pedestal.
Even the dusty books were bound in leather.
Mara loved having me as audience.
She sat there, half illumined by the fire
and half in shadow, spinning out long stories.
They were as fine as anything in books.
No, they were better because they were true.
She was a connoisseur of Schadenfreude
and was especially wicked in describing
her former lovers — imitating them,
cataloguing their signature stupidities,
and relishing their subsequent misfortunes.
(I’m surely in her repertory now.)
At first I was embarrassed by her candor.
I felt more like a confidant than lover,
but gradually I understood the motive—
even she needed someone to impress.
Life was a contest. Mara was a champion.
What good was winning if no one noticed?
Of course, that night we drank too much and argued.
She strode off, slamming doors theatrically.
I sat still, slowly finishing my drink,
feigning indifference — just as she would have—
and then went to the other wing to sleep.
Let her find me, I thought. Let her apologize.
She won’t like sleeping in this house alone.
The room was cold, and I was too annoyed
to fall asleep. I stretched out on the bed,
still wearing all my clothes, and tried to read.
Believe it or not, the book was Shakespeare’s sonnets.
What sweeter text for wounded vanity?
Farewell, thou art too dear for my possessing.
I’d found an old edition in the library,
and from sheer spitefulness I’d stolen it.
That night each poem seemed written just for me.
What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
I hope this explanation makes it clear
I wasn’t sleeping when I saw her enter—
Mara, I thought, mad at being ignored,
coming to make a scene. But, no, it was
a handsome woman in her early forties.
I thought she might have been a housekeeper
come in from town to check up on the place,
but why was she so elegantly dressed?
I started to explain why I was there.
She didn’t seem to hear and turned away.
Could she be deaf? I didn’t want to scare her.
Something was wrong. I couldn’t see her clearly.