Matinee

As we walk through the theatre doors
into the neon lit foyer, the coffee bar
where the festival folk gather, you sigh for those
other visits here, enjoying the reminiscence

and now the renaissance. Within the chitter chatter
of the twitched queue, you rummage, scraping
for notes that will give us minutes of mediation,
not, as others may think, to discuss 

actors or plot devices. No, we need
now to examine each other in crises,
and question, once again,
how we came to this afternoon.

There is enormity here.
The difficulty of glances, our language
for a new habit of engagement.
The catastrophic incidents shuffle through us.

We enter the auditorium, a circle of sepia tones,
dimming to blackout, and the rustle of sweets
that fall silent in increments.
A play about Fatherhood commences.

Afterwards, in the car heading eastwards,
I pray in silence, for the man who makes me
lost to myself when I am lonely,
who could not comprehend my wanderlust, a terror 

of being him. But, as we reach
the summit of the M62 and the land laid out
below in gold, we might have realised together,
that to control history is an exercise in futility.