Improv 1, Week 6

"5 AM" -John Poch

People want four things. The first three
are easy: to love, to know, to be.
--

People want four things. The first three
are easy: to love, to know, to be.
The fourth is for that man on the side of the
street to stop yelling Shakespeare at car windows,
fudging through distilled pentameter, swaying to
monologues of Ophelia and Portia, comedies
soon becoming some sick tragedy. His
fingers are wrapped in shreds, his hat greased.
We could call his memory good, his performance
just shy, but he skips the third Act as a rule.
He found a great volume of Billy’s sonnets
and plays in the dumpster on 3rd.
With a sense of literary morality, he
memorizes lines before burning pages over toes.
But one page, he tucked into the fold of this thirty
pocket coat—one page crinkles it’s warmth to
his chest. Though shredded, he slips it out to read
I would not be thy executioner:
I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.