Claudia Handler
Claudia Handler was honored this past spring as one of the six 2006
Newer Poets of Los Angeles.
Hear actor Brad Dourif read "For
the Betrayed"
For the Betrayed
(For Giulietta Masina in “Nights of
Cabiria,” directed by Federico Fellini)
Gone is the sway of the
rope bridge,
and the heralding tips of the flames,
for the truth is true,
and the lies are lies,
and you are penniless
as Cabiria,
skint and sinless,
with nothing but small socks for comfort.
You can ask to die,
like she does,
as butchered promises lie cracked and open,
certain and empty as eggshells.
Or sit, sunk in your
innocence,
which can no longer shame you
or make you righteous,
stunned and passive as
folded cotton,
with the grace of the broken,
and the stillness of the palm full of pieces.
You can sleep the sleep
of the helpless then,
like a bewildered wafer on a tongue,
and wake to the twigs
of this willing cliff,
and to nothing else but life,
and walk, with nothing else but feet.
And when the
adolescents approach,
pulsing and strumming,
pom-pommed and Vespa-ed,
chiffoned, drumming, and just,
and circle you until
you are
knocked ajar and flooding,
with something that you did not know,
you can come, like she
does, and nod
to the startled camera of us all.
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