On the Road | The New Republic

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Rosanna Warren/

December 26, 2024

On the Road

What would you do if, like Don Quixote, you met Death, an Emperor, a Demon, and a Queen traveling in a cart along a country road? It’s not every day you encounter the elementals. Never mind that their faces are pasty with makeup, their costumes frayed, that they’re a troupe of actors on their way to the next show at a county fair. Like the Knight of the Sorrowful Face, would you see through the disguises, into the heart of things? Beauty makes the heart skip. Power compels obeisance. But Death is the real impresario. Remember holding his hand all night, feeling it stiffen and grow cold in your warm palm. Until dawn filtered grayly into the room. And you found yourself alone. When Don Quixote challenged the actors, they leapt from the cart, lined up, and prepared to stone him.

Rosanna Warren’s most recent books are So Forth: Poems and Max Jacob: A Life in Art and Letters.