The corridors twisted, the mirrors spun wide,
As Harry stepped into the theater inside.
A sign on the door read of madness and play,
Where logic of daylight was bartered away.
He left his old self with his coat at the door,
The lonely old Steppenwolf pacing no more.

The music was throbbing, a jazz-laden beat,
With masks of all colors and stamping of feet.
The masquerade swelled like a swirling, wild sea,
Where sinners and saints were allowed to be free.
And Hermine was there in the thick of the throng,
The pilot who guided his spirit along.

The wine was like fire, the laughter was loud,
As faces melted into the crowd.
He floated through rooms filled with smoke and desire,
Where boundaries dissolved in a carnival fire.
The wolf in his chest began shedding its skin,
To let the wild torrent of living rush in.

[…]

He danced with a stranger, he laughed with a friend,
The tracks of his neat, bitter life at an end.
Then Pablo, the master of music and night,
Led Harry deep into a chamber of light.
The rugs were like moss and the air was too sweet,
Where bodies and souls were permitted to meet.

There lay his Hermine, with Maria entwined,
A vision of beauty and flesh unconfined.
No judgment was found in this temple of grace,
No shadows of guilt on a beautiful face.
They drew him down close to the warmth of the bed,
And silenced the arguments trapped in his head.

The barriers broke that had kept him apart,
The wolf was embraced by the humanly heart.
A triad of passion, of touch, and of breath,
A beautiful antidote mocking his death.
He drank from the cup of the ultimate game,
Where pleasure and ego were one and the same.

[…]

But magic is fleeting, and visions will fade,
The theater demanded a price to be paid.
He walked through the doors to a room of design,
And found his Hermine under Pablo’s dark wine.
They lay in the afterglow, peaceful and bare,
A pinprick of jealousy piercing the air.

He drew out the knife with a cold, sudden start,
And buried the blade in his mirror-twin’s heart.
The blood was a line on her breast, sharp and clean,
The death of his guide, his immortal Hermine.
Old Mozart looked down with a laugh from the sky:
“You took it too seriously, letting her die.”

The theater dissolved into laughter and stone,
Leaving the Steppenwolf standing alone.
The cards would be shuffled, the music would play,
And Harry must learn how to laugh at the day.