David Rosenthal

Chagall's Midsummer Night's Dream, 1939

Titania wears eternity in white

as she receives her unexpected groom.

Her love will only last a spell, a night,

before her blue fan sweeps it like a broom

to fairy dust, and Bottom’s head returns

to its rough weaver’s homeliness. How strange

he seems more worthy as an ass – one learns

to be with whom one’s with, to rearrange

the elements of habit, drive, and mind

in line with love. He never was all boor

and brute, but all his tenderness resigned

itself to roles he felt unsuited for.

Now, fiddler behind and angel above

will ratify this temporary love.

David Rosenthal is a public school teacher in Berkeley, California. His poems and translations have appeared in Rattle, HAD, Rust & Moth, Birmingham Poetry Review, Cosmic Daffodil, Teachers & Writers Magazine, Measure, and many other journals. He has been a Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award Finalist and a Pushcart Prize Nominee. His collection, The Wild Geography of Misplaced Things, was published by White Violet Press (Kelsay Books).