Poetry

Watching the Cherry Orchard

Kerry Popplewell

The play is almost over, the packing up
done: but we wait to see
if the impossible but not unimaginable
will happen—will Lopakhin propose
to the woman who loves him?

Alone on the stage,
they expend their final moments
in perilous small talk.
They are who they are.
We want to avert our eyes.

Kerry Popplewell