on (re)bullying Bill Shakespeare

Footnote:
(i'm glad we never kissed)

What decencies wrought, these bloated endless nights?
Ginger-soaked palliatives for longing, the wanderlust
of nightfall, and the madness of loving another man's wife.

I anticipate the kettle and glance at the petals; a flower accused
by a dead man of smelling as sweet regardless of its name.

But did he ever call it the wonderwork?

Did he ever encounter a redolence so sublime as a word unspoken?
Or cry Muhammadan tears on the Friday nights of Ramadan?
Did he ever face the dilemma of Dostoevsky:
eyes closed, mouth open in the dark?

Did he ever throw art into the void, knowing
the art, knowing the void, knowing that
he had done it before, that he would do it all again?

And, if he did not answer these questions,
can it really be said he ever lived at all?

William Shakespeare, dead Englishman and wearer of earrings