Dress Rehearsal

 

Strange how a summer cloudburst can stop a city

at noon. She takes the stage and at once we are all

 

supporting players. The café waiter scurrying

to clear dishes from sidewalk tables. The drunk

 

smoking in a doorway. Even the lawyers and execs

turning up the collars of their Burberry suits

 

now seem no more formidable than little boys

whose sandlot game was called in the seventh.

In the second act, a woman passes, holding a green

and pink umbrella, her hips rolling beneath

 

her dress. A delivery man runs by with a bouquet

and exits, stage right. In the third, a couple

 

of tourists hail a cab. Two nurses share a smoke

beneath the hospital marquee. There is a flash

 

of lightning, the hustle and slap of footsteps,

and then the curtain.

Comments

[Angela]

Love the extended metaphor and last line.

[Voom Voom Veda]

I love this.