Casanova’s Bed

by Kip Knott

For more than two centuries I have tried to remember the manner of my death, but the moment remains shrouded in clouds of dust and time. Perhaps a rococo book-worm groupie took pity on me and delivered me to the Hereafter before the numbers of books I sorted and shelved became the sum total of my life. Is it too trite to believe that one of the other librarians did me in when they caught me flipping through the illuminated pages of the Kama Sutra with a lonely patron after hours? I shudder to think that I died among the best romance novels of the day, quietly pleasuring myself because no one desired a gray-haired, pot-bellied librarian. Some part of me likes to believe that I died with my face between dog-eared pages of The Song of Songs, savoring Paradise in wine drunk from the round goblet of a lover’s navel. But alas, all I know for certain is that now I sleep cold and alone throughout eternity in my toe-pincher bed buried beneath a heavy blanket of earth, yearning for words, for love, for one last taste of all the virgins forever out of reach in Heaven.

6S

Kip Knott is a writer, poet, teacher, photographer, and part-time art dealer living in Ohio. His writing has recently appeared in Best Microfiction 2024 and The Wigleaf Top 50. His most recent book of poetry, A Mob of Kangaroos, is available from East Ridge Review and on Amazon. You can follow him on Instagram and read more of his work on his website.