A Dimming of the Lights

Poetry

beautiful things were not long for this world,

or so she believed when her beautiful mother —

an opera singer of renown by trade —

fell from a balcony to the lake below,

her red dress spun out in a shroud.

but still the stage called to her,

from the crush on her music teacher

to the open audition for the school play

and even to the theater camp she paid for

by working late shifts at a fancy restaurant.

she was not the ingenue or the prodigy,

but someone quite “midlist” in a way

because she never got a starring role

and usually worked behind the scenes

rather than have even a speaking role.

but still she persisted, hungry for praise,

until the day she would play Ophelia —

no Juliet, she knew, but still a heady role —

and she would hear nothing of parties

as she practiced night after night.

when she closed her eyes and imagined