Kathy Goss
Now that we need to evacuate the palace, we find
that all the cardboard boxes have been flattened
and bound into drab bundles with tough plastic straps.
How will we carry out the linens for banquets,
long tables set for dozens of dignitaries? Who has
inventoried the silverware and fine crystal, and how
will we wrap the individual goblets in soft tissue,
ready for transport? Our elaborate robes and gowns
are stretched across the commodious beds, where
generations of virgins captured in the hinterlands
have been ceremonially deflowered. Who will
carefully fold these garments into moth-proof trunks,
to be loaded into the official vehicles for their escape
across the border? The secretaries are fussing
with reams of scattered documents, upon which
they are forbidden to cast their intelligent gaze,
packing the most important in stout containers
and feeding the rest to a bank of shredders, as long as
the electric power holds out. It is a sad cliché
that the barbarians are at the gates, but there they are,
waiting impatiently in the cold, stamping their feet
to preserve circulation, ready with their blowtorches
and axes to demolish the furniture and ransack
the cupboards and locked drawers, as soon as the hour
arrives for their legally appointed ascension. This is
how it works, smooth and orderly, in our prescribed
transition of power.
Kathy Goss is a writer, artist, and musician. She lives in a remote location in the California high desert.
See her work at www kathygoss.com