Exit Stage Left

 

Tapping a pen out of ink

on a desk improvised with a plank

spanning an ocean of boxes

No matter than the pen is dry,

it works as an effect of the mind

The helpless director, feeling directionless

contemplates firing the set designer

on the last day of the year

Someone must take the blame,

the myth of after a promising opening

the show collapsing through months of ruin,

bare wiring not up to code, the desire

to burn down the theater, nothing

cleaner than pure soot on blind snow

*

Yet New Year’s Eve, the chance sprinkles itself

not in ashes but it’s own magic

The pen writes without ink —

Making it through one year enough

to say something may grace the one ahead