The Extra
The work is continual,
to fill the spaces around you like air,
the backdrop influence of the wind,
the tide. Lifeblood of the day-to-day
flowing downstage through streets,
stores, out of mind the way sea
evades the hand. I slip through
the set, through memory,
and construct an ambiance
—The coffeeshop businessman too crisp
for his slouch, for the casualness stretched
in his chair, failing to smother a grin—
With careful randomness,
I populate every set-piece,
blending conversation dotting
the scene like wallpaper
flowers behind a portrait of you
—The kids at the mall, uniforms pressed
against the stairway handrails, singing
to the height disparities of adolescence—
Surrounding you, I deliver
the background heartbeats;
footsteps of the world-builders
echoing across the stage,
your stage, breaking
like waves on the shore
of your soliloquy
—The matching smiles between a father
and the toddler who hangs on his arm
like hope, laughing like a wish—
I weave between spotlights
that know you like a lover, love you
like a savior, starring in my landscape
of the brushed shoulder;
the lullaby that fills a city,
that settles in a story
—The single exposed head in a blooming
field of umbrellas, hunched over
pinstripes grey as the falling sky—
A reassuring movement
suspended on the coast of your eye,
I sing familiarity on a stage
that never ends. The quiet solace
passing like savored time, purrs
the way a hearth-warmed quilt
adores the shoulder, all-encompassing
in the warmth of ovation
—The girl whose shoes glittered like the idea
of summer as she bounced by your window
on your last lazy Thursday—
Safe in realism, confidence,
the triumph of the quest
that calls you like the curtain
calls encore, you march
a finale in monologue.
My silent role in union
of the stage, in the bowing
cut to black, we live.
CynthIA
Count 1 1 2
Listen
Through the filters
And hear the air
In your mouth
Counting stiff
seven
The message
That slithers in skulls
And states
The air in your lungs
Is not yours
nine
The skywave intercepted
By flesh
Frozen tongue
Across your skin
Whispers to the nerves
two
Not alone
You have never
Breathed alone
Always borrowed air
Always gasping
Wavelengths of voice
Without you
Instructions beyond you
Saying always
Nothing except
three
To the one
Who knows
zero
Download a PDF of ‘The Extra, CynthIA’
Sam Moon
Sam Moon is a biology undergraduate student from a county no one’s heard of in Virginia, USA. She came to Australia with the hopes of being both creatively and intellectually inspired in the proximity of wild kangaroos. A prospective fantasy author who has been permanently sidetracked by poetry, she spends her free time daydreaming about books she’s already read, learning new stovetop recipes, and listening to too many podcasts.