SOON AFTER (an epilogue for A Streetcar Named Desire)                                                                   

Soon after, there will be quiet –                                                         

either dreamy sleep or just a moment

by a window, looking out for a change in the sky,

all because there was, nearby, in a random place,

a face worn by a few friends who had, together,

conspired to make magic with a thousand

flutters of eyelids and little twists of fingers –

some fine singers too, to ice the cake, to

make a point, though the words that

haunt me are those that woke cathedral bells.

Others may well have chosen another time or place:

perhaps the bow with roses clutched with such a

love (ever unrequited) that much would

be said, be sad, only to be cheated by another’s schemes,

stealing dreams from those who knew the need to kiss,

in the quiet, in the dark, no voyeurs, no purloiners, no

harbingers of a jacket at the end, at the tail, of it all.

Switch it all off and find the night; the morning might

right the wrongs of the story, the fury, the grab of

a body, a nobody, the oh so bright oddity

of the loss, of a house, of a lady, the fear of the

stay-aways, the crazy days shortening, stretching,

snapping, at heels and her heart. Such a part,

just a play, an everyday blanching of passions

cast away. Come now sleep, let it go, only

we know the woes of the story we’ve told;

keep it safe, in your heads, on a pillow on

your beds. There it can root and remember

the tender caresses of the tale and the players,

and prayers will sow the seed of layer upon layer

of love, exeunt the gainsayers, enter a new world -

one we made for ourselves, just for fun?

We know we made it for everyone.