( my self portrait for jared joslin)ON A PLAY TWICE SEEN
by: F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)
HERE in the figured dark I watch once more;
There with the curtain rolls a year away,
A year of years -- There was an idle day
Of ours, when happy endings didn't bore
Our unfermented souls, and rocks held ore:
Your little face beside me, wide-eyed, gay,
Smiled its own repertoire, while the poor play
Reached me as a faint ripple reaches shore.
Yawning and wondering an evening through
I watch alone -- and chatterings of course
Spoil the one scene which somehow did have charms;
You wept a bit, and I grew sad for you
Right there, where Mr. X defends divorce
And What's-Her-Name falls fainting in his arms.
"On a Play Twice Seen" is reprinted from the Nassau Literary Magazine, June 1917.
