Sitting Next to a Stranger at the Town Hall Theater
Posted on June 2, 2014 | Blog Category:
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Pardon me for thinking this armrest
was ours. For assuming what they were
singing had more to do with our lives
than theirs. What, I’m guessing, brings
you here, too. It’s hard to read the titles
above the tenor’s head, without wanting
to say the same thing to you. How chance
finds two strangers sitting on a bench
in the park. And not separated at birth,
the Playbill notes say, we’ll come to learn
later. I don’t want to believe I’m sitting next
to my sister, even if that sears their plot,
lets the soprano engage her lover.
And not the guy sitting to your right,
I want to think of as your father, not anyone
who might have walked you here,
across our town green. Not raising
his voice above a whisper.
Like I’m leaning over to do.
If I can have your ear, la mia bella
senora. My armrest-sharer, my afternoon
opera-goer.
Gary Margolis, Cornwall