The Secondary Players

Falstaff stepped out in loneliness and laughed,

Lear's Fool took wisdom with his jingling cap,

but who will know enough not to need love?

To know enough, and without saintliness

to accept the animal flesh, to know

the dying flesh, this is to know too much.

These are the figures on the drama's edge,

not yet of tragedy, smiling overmuch,

but not spoiling over a single flaw.

The veins crack; threads split and split the living

rock; a façade of pain crumbles, perhaps,

raising the curtain on the final act.

Someone must know too much and wait, loving

and loving through the final act. Someone

must see it all, tell it, but hesitate.