Tombstone Tales: Something Terrible Might Happen

Central Graveyard Vienna / onkel_wart

How beautiful she was –

like a woman rising

from a tomb, like

a dead woman looking

for me.

Like a little princess

with tiny white doves

for feet – one might fancy

she was dancing –

and wearing a yellow veil.

I never had seen her that pale,

as if she was a shadow

of  the shadow

of a white rose in a mirror

of silver.

I couldn’t keep from looking at her

while I knew it was dangerous

to look at dead people

in such way:

Something terrible might happen.

This poem was inspired by the first scene of Salome, the play written by Oscar Wilde.
More Tombstone Tales by Patrick Bernauw: Ghost Writings.