2 September 2003 | Vol. 3, No. 3

Reading the Part

by DENNIS MAHAGIN

I wonder will you

worry much

when your cherry popping daddies stop

handing you all the prized roles like cotton candy

for a spoiled brat cloistered in the carny midway

awning promenade and wailing

when they start to make you work for it that's

when you'll feel me watching from the wings

whispering confidentially with the long tall

elegant theater director lady

and when you look over to where you think

the chatter hum is coming from all you'll see

is a naked dressmaker's dummy

impaled on a tripod