Report from the black box

                                     A cooler

head of lettuce prevailed, but when the actor

asked his question and paused

for us to watch him pause and think

inside the pause, I almost answered

as if we were in a bar, just the two of us

and a balcony and spotlight. The two of us

and programs and makeup and a sofa

from the director’s living room and the black/

womb/agora/séance of theater inviting us to feel

together alone. I recall I don’t recall

the question but its scope on his face

was immense, as if he were the Milky Way

asking am I pretty, am I here for sure for real

for long and my breath was the quiet yessing

of tall grass against the shoulders of a cat

stalking the night. I actually opened my mouth

before I actually thought you will be stoned

and not in the good way, not with stones

of tongues, stones of fingers against my forehead

but the play was messy and tangible and full

of the etceteras I am full of and why

wouldn’t I want to talk with that is a question

the poem is asking you to answer wherever

you are without me is the problem

theater solves, since we sit together

in the dark with the dark because the dark

deserves a face a soliloquy a lover a bow

at the end. When I always wonder if the players

regret that the lights come up and they see us

as we are seeing them as they were,

what a weird mirror that is, showing one side

sudden appreciation and the resumption

of loose ends, the other the vast

and devotional possibilities of being kidnapped

by a dream and which side is which side

are you on?