Offstage

 

Offstage

She’s backstage in wardrobe,

Being measured up:

The final touches to costume,

Hair and make-up.

She can hear muffled voices,

Layered on the silence:

The ruffled noises of actors and audience,

The occasional scratching of applause,

The sharpening of the critics’ claws.

 

She shuffles around the stage -

Her slippers scuffing the polished floor -

Rearranging the props,

Shifting the scenery,

Changing the backdrops.

 

She’s working on trying

To remember her lines,

And how to figure in her cues.

But she keeps forgetting,

Drifting off … is carried away …

 

Then, prompted,

She exits stage left,

Wanders down the abandoned corridor,

Past the glitzy Stations of the Cross

That line the walls,

Climbs the narrow, crepuscular

Staircase, gripping the twisting,

Muscular bannister,

Calmed and worn smooth

By familiar hands.

 

At the top, a door ajar;

She finds herself in the gods,

Looks around, takes a seat,

Takes a breath,

And stares down

Into the teeming, atomised dark,

Sits waiting for the next show to start.