What Would Norma Desmond Do?

By Carlene Gadapee

Joe Gillis asks Norma for more dialogue: What for? she says,

perfect brows arched in disdain. I can say anything I want

with my eyes. I ask myself, What Would Norma Desmond Do?

In Norma’s horrible script, Salome’s dance of the seven veils

delayed John’s beheading. Her mother wanted the Baptist’s head,

and Salome danced until momma got it on a platter.

The screenplay could never be produced, but O! the occasion

For Norma’s terrible, dramatic eyes to tell her brutal story--

(I wander through grocery aisles, slightly adrift and masked,

reaching but not choosing, afraid to touch the can of tomatoes,

Kleenex, Corn Flakes. A virus lurks, and I slow-breathe moist air

into wide cotton bandages, hoping to filter the particulate’s hiss.)

--I should take my cue from mysterious women

behind their layered veils. Their habits are not mine: they know

how to darken lids, to extend lashes, their eyes obliquely aware.

I hide behind Jackie-O shades, rose-tinted Lennon glasses.

Norma’s right: Eyes do the talking.

Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.

Carlene M. Gadapee teaches high school English in northern New Hampshire, and she is the Associate Creative Director and Education Consultant for The Frost Place in Franconia. Her work has been published by or is forthcoming in the Aurorean, Backchannels, The Blue Nib, Fishbowl Press Poetry, Think, English Journal, Smoky Quartz, Waterwheel Review, and Gyroscope, among others.