It all started out like a dream,
        but love is dangerous, son.
    Swims through your dreams
                eating at  you.
This I know.
This you will know.
This is the point where the voice breaks-
           cracks when you don’t expect it to.
     Each lost in his own aria,
 we seem to be in different cadences.
You are academically plunking on the same keys 
           over and over
  with the same slender fingers
             that used to caress my face-
        pianissimo, of course.
   That’s what I loved about it.    
    You are singing the same scales
           over and over
     with that same clear tenor
            that used to drown out my own.
   “If I loved you
          words wouldn’t come in an easy way”
   You are talking at me 
                  from the far end of the rehearsal hall
        and drowning in your own echoes.
   I feel as though the Queen’s throat has been pierced.
 I feel trapped on the wrong side of the curtain
   only seeing the ripple of red velvet
     only hearing a muffled voice
          which I assume is yours
       singing recitative that is well-rehearsed
              and oh so technically adept,
          but it somehow rings false to me.
“If I loved you
         time and again I would try to say
	  all I’d want you to know”
When the mask you wear
                melds with your face
         so that the two are indiscernible to the audience-   
                               that is acting.
             Now the two are indiscernible to me
                     and it’s frightening.
But no more frightening than the realization
                  that despite a different lyric, it’s the same damned song.
      The show is over. Say goodbye.




  


    

Back to [the poems...]

    Site Produced by 


    © 1999-2002. All Rights Reserved.

    Send questions or comments about the site
    to the Poet.