The Lights of Broadway Go Down

they sit next to the wall, the two young men
in their chairs, faces pressed flat
against the eggshell paint, bodies scrunched up

like little children, drinking milkshakes
from long straws that loops around loop.

across the table from each other, the glasses pause between
them, and space, and noble silence,
uninterrupted fluorescence, not theirs, not their
show, not their dream, but an energy-saving
bulb, dangling overhead.

some notes still ring in their ears.

i am sitting with them, slightly
off-center, spectrally no different
in my hesitance, eager to profess having learned,
loathe to admit having failed.

dear readers, my friends, a heartbreak!
a show that closed on opening night.

my heart, my heart, taken when i opened for you!
before i finally understood
that the word shatter, beyond its meaning,
has a signature sound, edges hitting the relentless
ground. that is the gravity of it, more than the
aftermath of tiny pieces.

i will use my best lipstick and color in
the corners of the measured deluge, and lend to them
all the slight filth of hope:
wood shavings, averted glances, yesterday's costumes.

the lights of broadway go down.

in this punch-drunk state,
it only takes an hour to get to the airport.