The Script

The script is completed for us
My Love,
It’s been scribbled,
Scratched,
Rewrite hatched,
Dictated,
Translated,
Typed and amended,
Stage directions added,
Costumes are splendid,
The actors cast,
Theatre engaged,
The budget expended
Investors aghast,
Producers enraged,
Playbills folded,
Tickets printed,
The curtain is rising at last

And yet

I forget…

I cannot for the life of me
Call up the title
And where’s our director?
With urgency vital
The overture starts
Adrenaline fear…
Dry mouth
Pounding heart
The audience is here!

Then dead in the middle
Of the opening lines
I realize
It’s time for you
(wasn’t that your cue?)

This was supposedly organized
But yet
Somehow
(I realize now)
The scenes seem scrambled
Conversations left open
The dialog ambles
The development broken
With couplets too jumbled
And mumbled, not spoken
Is this a drama,
A concert,
A dance?
Was this a tragedy,
Comedy,
A romance?
Or just ham and eggs
With you pressing my pants?

Ah well, sweet love,
Who can tell?
We’ll just swirl down the stream
On a pearly oyster shell
I’ll be Richard Burbadge
You, Hepburn, Kate
Or ourselves, ourselves,
Swinging on the garden gate
We’ll perform just like troupers,
Speaking truths, subtle lies,
No matter in what wise
We’ll simply
Extemporize
Every scene
Each verse
Third stanza
Fourth line…
No need to rehearse
We’ll have them rolling in the aisles
And leave them in tears
With no choice but to envy us
A pair without peers
This theatre, this stage
Will resound with their cheers

Our eyes briefly meet
As the curtain comes down…
Such freedom
Such wit
This pairing
This crux of existence
Sharing,
Eternal,
Diurnal,
This “us,” My Love,
We’ll savor every bit.