Backstage at the Met

let me show you the backdrop for my opera:
	the headlights of a car
	half buried in mud
	its death agony shortly thereafter
and the characters
nobody has to invent them:
	soaked and misty soprano
		you clearly     we were all such time
	tenor open at the throat
		i am here     no reason
		that’s why that’s it
basses accepting fivers
	maybe dimes or living quarters
winged by potential     all the other cast members
	buried tones     alt low
	mezzo standing in the middle
a black sky energy face of the stars speaks
if you can’t sing just hum the lines

the blood of the alley entire
the deep city avenues of your imagination
the orchestra of individual car horns
your opera free in the street of the streets
rabbits that leap in their ecstasy on sidewalks
a citywide burst of theatre fronts and sixty-story exuberance
throughout this opera you are still singing amazing me
all these footprints     startled genetics remembering your face
your phantom disrobed and filled to the soul
the soul visible     the physical purification of energy
		
        
        
        
        

from Yew Nork (2014)