Poor lovers, we know our parts none too well,
nor our cues. We kiss in the dark, backstage,
under the glow of EXIT, near stacked chairs.
Music emanates from an orchestra pit out there
in the lights, in the heat, and we strain to hear
through velvet the arrow that points to our time
to stumble out, screw up, a thousand sleepless
eyes gazing, papers rustling, no applause but
the rain falling in sheets across the theater roof,
gurgling in downspouts in the wet real world
where you and I really met and decided, somehow,
we were actors, our places masking-tape X’s,
our words prearranged in the hush of what’s not.
