Duchess

    This is a poem about Duchess, a character from Amor Towles' new novel The Lincoln Highway.  Duchess plays a villian, but is completely unaware of his harmful behavior.  Only at the very end did I feel sorry for him.

 

When your time came,

Sneaking through the cylinders,

Catapulting you east, to the source,

Remembrance reprieved,

Grudges suspended,

Reconciling nothing, only the steal,

Abuses projected on the unwitting,

Betrayal inevitable with every twist

You sewed, weaving through the illusions,

Tasteless distortions that brought friends

To their knees, without choices left,

The terrible greed binding your knuckles to fate,

Lost since the horror,

His face, that watch, ticking away the years,

The corrosive belief that you are on your own,

Left to rot in the halls of abandonment,

That unbearable pain submerged,

The shock concealed

In burdens of mischief

That tied you to a boat, out on a lake,

Left for dead by those you loved,

Nowhere to go but the dream beneath,

Where they wait for you, in another world,

The seconds ticking, a life expired,

Still carefree, holding on in vain,

Pleased to see them with their hollow eyes,

Their faces smiling, his face absent,

Replaced by the watch from your pocket,

And that's when it happens,

When the ticking hands melt away the present, 

When all familiarity recoils, the ghost escapes,

Your face in its glassy reflection,

The seconds ticking away,

The shock, the horror,

No, only now do you understand,

What he did, no, what your father did,

It ruined your life.