Winter/Spring 2016

by George Bishop

 
for my sister
 

This year’s production would be…well,
it doesn’t matter yet. The music’s involved.
Music’s always involved. At this point,
though, it only wants to listen to itself.
The director began in a dark warehouse
 

of props, her own and the ones with long
shadows, missing covers and anything 
that might fit her shaky world of stages.
Recently, cancer had made an appearance,
auditioned a few promises, then asked
 

to leave, escorted by a few steady hands,
bright lights and the precise dedication
of the dollar. I’ll be around, it said from
the street. Money was always available
at Brookwood School, which is both good 
 

and bad. To get everything you want
out of song you have to be driven, broke
somewhere inside. And this year, more
than any other, she was. We’ll have to
wait and see—her cancer ghost written
 

deep in the script, the music of opening
night privately tuning the same audience,
the students living out their brief, forever
years, and other props rehearsing the dark
of next year, then the next, and then…

[More poems by George Bishop]