Molière’s Chair 

He wore the mask before he knew the play, 
a carpet-seller’s son with ink-stained hands, 
who traded silks for satire, night for day, 
and walked from law into the laughing stands.

They threw him apples—baked, not sweet— 
when tragedy betrayed his earnest tongue. 
Yet still he bowed, and found in comic beat 
a sharper blade than any hero swung.

He wrote in trunks, in taverns, under lamps, 
his verses stitched with powdered courtly grace. 
The King, amused, forgave his jests and scamps— 
but priests saw devils in his comic face.

They say he died mid-line, in coughing fits, 
while playing sick upon a stage too real. 
The chair remains, where legend softly sits— 
a relic of the man who dared to feel.

And somewhere still, a trunk may yet exist, 
with plays unwritten, laughter yet unkissed.