Charlotte Corday

Cherry

By harrietmacmillan

Thu, 04 Oct 2012
  • 1191 reads
5 comments
 

Charlotte Corday
I can see you now. Pale,
With hair like a breathing cloud,
Accumulating beneath
The cummulus of your cap.
Swaddled, like an expired bride.
Hands, white lily pands
On the pond of your lap.

Why in the bath?
Were you curious to see
The musculature, rifts of hair,
The manhood of a murderer?
The man whose skin did not fit,
So he found the pelts of others?
Reams of 100,000, you said.
Fabric that he could bear to wear.

But did you peep at this one man?
Glance down before
Your blade looked in?
Losing lung, how did he sound?
Help me, my dear friend.
At last, you saw how
Red can grin across a white sheet.

At their bordello, you were given
to Madame Guillotine.
You became pale again.
White geranium with pinker veins.
In whose bed did you grow?
Their tools and fingers asked.
But whole, complete Charlotte-
You didn't keep your secrets between your legs.

Certificate U
Poem
Biography

Comments

Submitted by Sooz006 on
This implies that she was Marat's mistress, was she? I thought it was purely political. An obscure subject to write about I'm interested to know what led you to this poem. Excellent writing.

 

Submitted by tcook on
I must admit that I too am confused by the ending here. My understanding (now confirmed by a quick visit to Wikipedia) was that Corday was a more moderate Girondist who wanted to kill the Jacobin Marat 'in order to save 100,000'. His last words were Aidez-Moi, ma chere amie - all of which you have - but it's the bit about the bordello I don't get. Maybe you know more than I do - which wouldn't be difficult. I have always found her to be a fascinating character. Murder had become so commonplace at this stage of the revolution that she was not phased at the thought of carrying it out. It's about the brutalisation of the human, I think.

Submitted by harrietmacmillan on
My intention was not to suggest that they were lovers- more that an inexperienced, virginal aristocrat murdering an older man in his bath was very interesting to me in terms of sexual as well as social politics. Bordello was intended as a metaphor- with the guillotine serving as "Madame", implying the ways that La Terreur had degraded morality.

Submitted by tcook on
There's another interesting fact about Marat - the reason he met people in the bath was because he had a terrible skin condition and it was only in an oily bath that he got any relief.

Submitted by harrietmacmillan on
Again, I tried to imply this with the line about "skin did not fit"...perhaps I've been too oblique :(