24. Methought I Saw an Angel
[Leopold’s observatory. Night.]
[The telescope, alone, eerie, cruel. LEOPOLD enters, looks at the telescope. He’s pulled toward it, tempted by it, longs to look through it, turns away from it, turns back. At the last moment, he takes up a black sheet and covers the telescope with it.
Trembles. Breathes.]
PORKEO, off.
Methought I saw an angel
Falling from the sky,
But when I looked, ’twas only Sue,
All feathers, cap-a-pie.
[PORKEO enters, carrying a sack on his back, filled with all his comic accoutrement—his bauble sticking out of the top. His makeup’s smeared where tears have trickled down.]
“They’ve dunked me all in pitch,
All in pitch,” says she,
“And stuffed with feather-fluff,
For that I loved another man
That weren’t my husband, Joff.”
“My lady, Sue, you had me scared.
Scared,” I said,
“I thought thou wert St. Paul!”
And laughed, but when I did . . .
I saw another angel fall.