Loved to Madness
/Gene Twaronite
She stared at the bedpan, disgusted, yet thankful for its reassuring contents and for still knowing what shit was. Nurse aide Kara helped her up for a sponge bath. Coyly resisting, she pulled her arms tightly across her breasts. Looking deeply into Kara’s eyes, she smiled and surrendered, opening her arms as if to embrace a secret lover. As each part of her body was washed, she tensed, shivered and moaned. At last she burst out with an ecstatic cry that came from a place as foreign as the moon. Exhausted and bemused, she lay back on her pillow. She was not an erotic being, of that she was sure. Sex had always left her with a feeling of empty release, no more satisfying than a good bowel movement. It’s not that she hadn’t tried. Dutifully she would moan and arch her body for lovers, often at inappropriate times. Before a date she would practice in the mirror, touching herself tenderly, rehearsing aloud as if from a script. But her lovers never bought it and neither did she.
In her literature classroom, it was a different story. For her students she had called forth the universe of fictional characters dwelling inside her, channeling their words and passions into live performances. She became Emma Bovary, liberated from a dull life and marriage. She became Thomas Hardy’s tragic beauty, Eustacia Vye, whose exotic, dark-haired looks she fancied herself sharing. Here in the classroom she lived more truly than anywhere else, conjuring up every scene down to the smell of smoke from the wild Egdon Heath. She often wondered if she could ever feel Eustacia’s one great desire: To be loved to madness.
One day, during a sponge bath, she became strangely quiet and calm, as if focusing all the memories still left to her. She turned to Kara and demanded what she longed to hear. Is that you, Damon? Do you love me now? Tell me; I will know it. Kara thought quickly, back to a novel she often lived in, thanks to a grandmother from Dorset in whose heart the heath still burned. She answered in a husky voice. Yes, Eustacia. I do love you. Where do you wish to go?
Gene Twaronite is a poet, essayist, and author of ten books, including two juvenile fantasy novels and two short story collections. His latest book of poems is The Museum of Unwearable Shoes (Kelsay Books, 2018).
Gene has always been fascinated by poetry’s ability to convey entire worlds of thought and feeling within a few lines of compressed expression. A native New Englander, he is now a confirmed desert rat residing in Tucson. Follow more of Gene’s writing at his website: thetwaronitezone.com.
