The Fourth Wall

by Carter Ratcliff

For me, it is the page.
Words break through it, but not these words.
Or not necessarily.

The break-through words may be unspoken.
Just as break-through emotions may be unfelt.

So says Diderot in The Paradox of the Actor,
without a word for the paradox of the prop master

or the prompter hidden away in a box itself hidden.
In plain sight, admittedly.

Or the prompter is a tree, alone and impossible to miss
in a glowing sea of grass.

There is light in the grass but no Enlightenment.

Our vegetable friends don’t need it,
nor do most animals.

As for the watery sea,
its ingrained eudemonia is self-evident.

Squid drift, dolphins bask, and as the curtain falls
on another day, the individual asks,

What did I get from this performance ?
How does it help me ?

These questions are the wrong questions, friend,
citizen, member of a diverse and uneasy population.

Ask, instead, what did I bring to the production ?
Did I flub my lines ?

Was I in the audience, even,
cheering as the fourth wall came tumbling down ?

If not, what is the point of my existence ?