In the evening we searched his rooms,
     looking for reasons,
     words to serve
     as talisman against unease.
Perhaps an homunculus, we thought,
     carp lips pressed against the glass of the jar,
     a waxy fingered Hand of Glory, or a book
     whose binding once was worn
     by one less cautious then ourselves.

We prowled the debris
     pausing at each door,
     where dusty room telescoped into dusty room
     without one riddle to amaze us.
Despairing of marvels, we settled for mockery,
     danced on the magician's sofa,
     swung from his chandelier
     and burst through one last door to find

The magician himself,
     single eye a dulled mirror
     sprawled in a bouquet of scarves,
     and scattered across the floor,
     purses,
     some sequined, linings tobacco spackled
     others drab as the breast of a dead pigeon.

But each when opened released,
     like a dove from a hat,
     a single phrase
     or perhaps
     only
     a sigh.

Jack Heazlitt is a 62 year old web developer and occasional bartender living in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1992 he co-founded the Saturday Salon, a short-lived, highly productive, Louisville crit group. His previous work has been geared to public performance and the poem above is the sole example currently in print. To contact him, email jheazlitt-sh@yahoo.com.