Omens

Her eyelids were painted blue. When she closed her eyes the sea rolled in like ten thousand fiery chariots, leaving behind silence above & below a thousand years old. He stood beneath a high arched window, gazing out at fishing boats beyond the dikes, their nets unfurled, their offshore gestures a dance of living in bluish entourage. He was only the court’s chief jester. What he said & did made them laugh, but lately what he sometimes thought he knew could cost him his polished tongue & royal wig. He was the masked fool unmasking the emperor. Forget the revelation. Forget the briny sea. He had seen the ravishing empress naked in a forbidden pose. Her blue eye shadow. Aquamarine shells crusted with wormy mud. Anyway, if he said half of what was foretold, the great one would become a weeping boy slumped beneath the Pillars of Hercules.