The curtain rises in its gilded frame
upon the final act of La Boheme.
He marks the heroine’s consumptive life,
and then compares this creature to his wife.
Her profile pivots just enough to shift
her eyes to his. The way her eyebrows lift
above her satin sleeve, he wonders how
to judge her beauty. Could he woo her now?
A bantering in bed, a nothing much
about mortality if toes should touch.
Their arias had never been unloosed,
bassoons and clarinets not once seduced.
Puccini pulls her from her velvet seat
to vacancies her husband can’t complete.
He grasps her hand: lost Mimi’s on her bed,
Rodolfo at her side. They are not wed.
| Copyright © 2016 by Eric Meub Eric Meub, architect, lives and practices in Pasadena. He is the adopted brother of the artist, Susan C. Price. They respect, in their different ways, the line. |  |
Get out your recording of "La Bohème" to watch again - join Eric Meub's poetic characters in the opera house! (Mimi & Rudolfo are characters on Puccini's stage.)
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