P.S. Never dance with a poet.
What if the world
isn’t ending just yet?
The postscript, though,
says it doesn’t matter.
“Who do you listen to?”
it asks, grayly. You
try the PowerPoint
approach: “Have you
not seen my playlist?”
The letter flutters a
bit in his hand as
the small fan’s air,
sucked through the
room’s only window
(that looks out over
an alleyway, of course.)
wends its way around
the room. The scene
remains frozen for an
extended bit, as if
it were onstage before
a sparse audience, none
theless rapt, or else in
a chokehold. Attempted
murder, perhaps. But by
whom? By what? The
skimpy swirl of fresh air?
The casket-sized room
(How deft the production’s
design team! Could they
have been the culprit?)?
The muted brew that rises
over the alleyway and into
its window? The pallid
hand? The softly flutter
ing letter in its limp grip?
Or the belligerent,
demanding cascade
of words upon the cur
iously pink parchment?
