T W O
Written in sand or carved in marble,
the shape of words once shaped
stay shaped in something, somehow – something
other than whatever
softened first to the writer’s touch.
An actor acts and actions
(with an audience or not) somewhere,
somehow, accumulate.
During the third day
of his researches, Professor Martel
outlined his theory
to an attentive young librarian.
The attentive librarian nodded
and straightened her skirt.
She suggested dinner and drinks.
Professor Martel declined,
saying his work came first.
The attentive librarian shrugged.
Professor Martel returned
to his researches, more or less
sure his outline remained outlined
in something, somewhere, somehow.
*
I figured my obsession
might attract a romantic’s eye.
Back then, I understood
that the number of my future days
matched the pages in my notebook.
I didn’t want to hurt her
by letting her fall in love.
Love and words cast different shadows.
This thing
that I now call “accumulated expressiveness”
started as just the hint
of a thought when a drama teacher
told me a story
about a freshman student’s performance.
The teacher, decades earlier,
had witnessed a rehearsal
in the dressing room
of a famous actress. The performance
never happened
because the actress committed suicide
later the same night as the rehearsal.
The drama teacher
never detailed the events
of the final rehearsal, but
more than two decades later
this drama teacher, the only
witness to that last, complex rehearsal
of an intricate
performance, watched a freshman actress
lose herself in the depths
of her involved portrayal
of the same scene – a portrayal
capturing the same spark,
the same life, the exact same essence
of the rehearsal in the dressing room
two decades before.
What if somewhere, somehow – I thought – something
connected these scenes.
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