A new poem by Heather Holdaway.

Little King

Austerlitz

Looking across the frozen lake

I demanded mama’s soup from Corsica

To be heated

Slightly higher heels 

For my riding boots

A fresh quill to sign the inevitable Treaty

Tomorrow

And my men

Oh my men

Oh my glorious tomorrow men 

None of whom need higher heels 

For their riding boots

Tonight to wait

Under pine fronds

To remember despite our fake limping

Our many loud shouts of man,

How sad and unfulfilled and poorly we sure were feeling

Imminent victory

Is imminent

Also to remember please  

To avoid the touching of their winkies 

To the ice.

***

Borodino

Have you ever won

Technically

Followed the Yellow Brick Road that

Leads to the Emerald City

Only some total rip

Has set it on fire

And you slowly rub your hands together 

In its glow

Avoiding eye contact 

With your men next to you

Oh your men

Oh your men for whom there is no more tomorrow

Who you would like to bathe in a bath of warm bubbles

Soft flannels for their scarred backs

Hot soup for their hollow selves

Slowly blackening from their digits inward

Despite the heat of Moscow

Have you?

Nah.

Me neither.

***

Elba

It is an hour after midnight

Men have brought me a letter

Their faces turn from mine

Men, I would like to insist in my socks

Men, about Moscow, look

About this whole Elba misunderstanding

But the letter is about you

It is small, damp from the crossing

Betrayed with the fingerprints of many men

I had once dreamed to be your stockings, your little boots, your gloves

To hold you 

Tall in my love

Now, men close the door behind them and ignore my raw weeping

Then they open the door again

Shuffle in

Confiscate my letter opener that

Slit open the great white belly of this news 

For it to pour out

Welcome as the guts of fish

Then they close the door again softly

Still glorious, my men

A locked room

On an island

Has never felt lonely

Until now

I cannot even click my heeled boots together and ask to go home

Because it is late

And I am socked

And you are gone

We die in the midst of marvels

And so I live on without you,

Josephine. 

Notes

Little King – Elba section references Napoleon I, Emperor of the French 1769-1821, (2022) Letters to Josephine. Musaicum Books. Translated by Hall, Henry Foljambe.

“It is an hour after midnight”, and “We die in the midst of marvels” are direct quotes from Letter No.4, Series A from Letters to Josephine.

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