Geoffrey Heptonstall

Cambridge, UK

Written 3-7 April, thinking about theatre because the theatres are closed.

My publications include a full collection, The Rites of Paradise [Cyberwit 2020], and a novel, Heaven’s Invention [Black Wolf 2017]. A number of plays have been performed, read and/or published. Essays and reviews in Litro, The London Magazine, Montreal Review, the TLS.

THE MOOR OF VENICE

Love has many shades of darkness,

so many ways of spending night.

He knows too well how betrayal begins

in the depth of a soldier’s wound.

A fever burns his pride,

His passion changing position.

A word half-heard opens the eye,

but not to see the sun

when reason sleeps in shame.

A sea crossed to a coast

of unexpected contours.

In glim light all is Africa.