Mercutio’s Soul Is But a Little Way Over My Head

In my worn script I’d recorded,
“Please remind class: Mercutio is not
a Montague.” I stopped instructing myself
long ago. My ardor is as mute as the lovers’
statues, birdshit-spotted years after the play,
after they’ve been stolen and sold and
stand alone in cloistered courtyards.

I’ve left Mercutio too. He rarely
enters discussion, rests backstage,
Queen Mab safely in her matchbox.
Mercutio confuses them, as does
anyone, like me, who drapes his shadow
over one shoulder of his motley. They

can’t see punning as they expire, don’t know
all hearts cleft with the bow-boy’s shaft
bleed in hidden places. We’ve learned to keep
some jests sheathed, our furies doused,
Mercutio and I. We’ve withdrawn to private places
to reason coldly of our grievances, to find words
to nearly create a richer world. They love

youth—Romeo’s slick heart, Juliet’s white
words for her mother—but witty cynics?
Only from afar. They want fuel for the fire
of sacrifice, not life seeping from old wounds.