The Seventh Room, by Janna Layton
“The Masque of the Red Death†is short—
a story in seven pages—
and so much of it
is Poe’s description of the rooms,
the twisting ballrooms of the castle
where Prince Prospero has locked himself away
from the plague.
Blue         Green        White        Black & Red
Purple        Orange       Violet
Seven rooms, each a different color,
as in Bartók’s opera Bluebeard’s Castle,
where Judith begs her murderous bridegroom
for seven keys to seven doors
that lead to rooms of various intent.
Blood-Red: the torture chamber
Yellow-Red: the armory
Golden: the treasury
Blue-Green: the garden
White: the veranda
Black: the lake of tears
Silver: the previous wives
Judith opens doors to pain and flowers,
neither frightened nor wooed enough to stop.
Prospero runs through rooms of music and tapestries,
chasing that figure in the mask.
If they could forget what they’re looking for,
would anything
end differently?
Nevertheless,
they continue
to the final room,
to that truth
they can’t refuse.
illustration By Harry Clarke – Printed in Edgar Allan Poe’sTales of Mystery and Imagination, 1919., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2348546
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[…] Janna Layton’s poem, “The Seventh Room,†in the literary magazine Polu […]