Michael Malone - Weebly

it of sense, does it, death?
Not even the poets, much as they rant and wail,
they don't believe it's true." He traced with his toe the
pattern of cerulean flowers in the small rug in front of
the couch. "It's just a horror story they read to scare the
young and beautiful into surrender. Give me your
virginity before the worms devour it." Saar's cheeks
brightened and his eyes filled.
(I've never seen him like this, Jonathan thought.
He's in pain, and he's come here to me. The curate's
body was tense with the carefulness with which he
listened.)
Saar looked up at him. "The worms always win,
don't they? In spite of swans and urns and nightingales
and roses getting gathered.
No matter what the color of your hair is. Despite all
their raging against it, the poets are dead now, mute and
deaf, dirt just the same."
Jonathan placed his silver candy dish beneath Saar's
ash, but the headmaster seemed to have forgotten he
was smoking. "Do you know Yeats?" Saar asked him.
"Not really. A little, we studied him, I mean. Did