Examining Ophelia

[painting by Janet Snell]

I was always afraid of popping into his mind at the wrong time, just as he was drifting off perhaps (perchance to dream?). He'd shake his fists as if he was the only one enslaved, but he'd rise and light the candle, the circles of pale yellow falling on his pen. The light was like the velvet curtain rising above the stage, the signal to push me down between folds of parchment again, creasing me with his ravaged nib. In the morning, I'd feel grateful for the ink stains that obscured my most recent reality. Smears and blobs fat as tears would make a better truth possible. You think I protest too much? A soliloquy in a pocket, another un-smooth course. The options could drive any muse mad. There are ghosts afoot tonight, and under a glass, the old story looms larger than life, as tangled as the weeds in my waterlogged hair.