offstage

 

9 offstage (from exhibition) 

sketch in pencil on very thin paper

a man walks into a room

sits on a chair at a table

the room itself is suggested

by the presence of the chair and the table

not by the man    he drums his fingers

on the hard wooden surface of the table

he fidgets with a pencil   makes tentative scratches on the air

he feels the unbending wooden chair beneath his buttocks

his feet solid on the undrawn floor of this room   and he doubts

he sees a door he looks out a window in the undelineated walls of this room

 

a giant eraser descends from the unseen ceiling … and the prayer