The Fateful Hand
The meadowlark makes you try
to guess their favorite movement
You have three guesses
and run out
Which is embarrassing
because there are only four
Movements in the whole
symphony their favorite being
The third the adagio the
tempo of a careful jellyfish
The meadowlark has never seen
Soft Cloth Car Wash
Over at the Blue & Gray Mall
Something different is forming
You have to ask for it with your hands
Open, & no expectations
If you do you’ll see a bright
Pink balloon in the middle of a forest
Painted tapestry of sky at the back
Of a crowded theater, most of the
Players green & brown & the star a
Pale rose floating up / to infinity
voire mortel
this poem is about a play i didn’t write
& won’t
called voire mortel
the play is mostly about bari
bari is a lucid dreamer
sometimes she mentions this
to the people at her job
at the walmart vision center
her best friend cassandra
her boss ari
the odd customer
it is one of the major threads
in bari’s text conversations with M
in the play it is not made clear
who M is
but when bari gets home
from work she usually texts M
their conversations are projected
on a big screen upstage
for the audience to see
M is the person with whom bari
has the closest most honest relationship
they talk about everything
especially their hopes
& dreams
so when bari has her first dream
she can’t control
at least not fully
she tells M about it
she tells M the dream
takes place in a park
which is true
in the dream she & her friends
from high school are using
golf clubs to blow up half-used lighters
at the basketball court
near the small hill
the neighborhood kids use
in the winter
for sledding
which is true
she tells M the part of the dream
she can’t control is when
her best friend cassandra
explodes a lighter
with a nine iron
& then immediately
turns around
& kisses her
which isn’t true
but that’s what she tells M
we cannot judge from M’s reaction
via text but anyone
in the audience who has ever texted
wistfully
will know M’s love for bari
has become asymptotic in this moment
Marguerite Duras style
i will not write this play because
a) it will pale
in comparison to
actual Marguerite Duras
nor was the Huis Clos
thing with ari bari & cassandra
ever going to get off
the ground
& b)
i am terrified of acting
like in awe
of it
& i’d want to play bari
in the play
so badly
but i couldn’t do it
i’d be too scared
so i’m going to keep it an imaginary play
where i can imagine myself
as bari in the final scene
where the audience sees
what really happened
in bari’s dream
in the dream
cassandra destroys a lighter
with her nine iron
the spark ignites the remaining fluid
makes a brief flash of flame
& when cassandra turns to bari
& walks slowly
toward her
i would play this slack
unguarded
bari has no idea
no defense whatsoever
against the nine iron
so when cassandra
smashes bari’s knee
with her nine iron
although it doesn’t hurt
because dream etc.
the betrayal is so total
as to be a kind
of death
voire mortel
and to play bari i would have to know
that after this dream
every part of bari’s life
will change
feel different
none of the tiny screws
in the glasses repair kits
will fit right again
ari will start
to cut her hours
& she won’t care
she will go to the park
on a day she now has off
a day she knows
cassandra isn’t working
she will buy a full lighter
at the corner store
on the way
& when she gets to the park
i would play this quickly
like she’s doing it
without thinking
she will leave the lighter
on the corner
of the concrete
& use both
her knees
to walk away
Time
the moment
we made it
a problem
it still passed
Seed Library
