Scenes From Risk Poem by Judith R. Robinson

1.


Players long to capture alchemy:

a slippery tableau
inscribed by separate sets of hands;

a strange
master resides off stage
and directs the performance:

Now run in mad circles
like circus apes
or clowns: pile up, fall down
grab each other by the tail.



2.

Healer, charlatan,
long bronze kisses-

“Kiss me, spike my punch..”

“Punch your lights.”

“Wait. Don’t leave me.”


Masterful should begin with a big M,
playful, a little p! Try to get it Right.


3.

A field of tender prairie star-flowers.
In the distance, a firing squad.

“I saw what you did.”

“But no one will ever love you like I do.”

“Please don’t lie to me.”


“OK. Saw it carved on a tree, in hell
where I used to live; an onion tree.”



4.

“Irreplaceable me versus replaceable me…?
is that the question? ”

“No: how many wounds
does it take not to die…?

And where were you last night?

Those are the questions.”


5.


“Next summer: a promise:
blue nights,
those dark-blue-eyed moon-kids, us…”

“I know. I don’t know.
OK, I think I know.”



Slow fade, fade to black.