in the city
this city is a stage –
just one show playing:
Rocky Horror,
with limited seating.
front and center:
gilded chairs,
reserved for those
elevated in the lift
to penthouses piercing
the shifting skyline.
the middle rows:
a decent view,
for modest folk
who work hard
and save all night
to taste the arts –
but never rise
to the penthouse.
the back-row tickets:
“affordable” seats –
cramped and straining,
no legroom, no treats,
your only view
the city concedes.
they call it success,
this one-theatre town.
demand breeds hunger,
prices hoisted to heaven,
while foreign money
threatens to buy
the theatre itself.
and past the lights,
on the outskirts
where the streets grow dim,
living with her mother
a 40-year-old Mostonian
voraciously questioning:
“is this my life?”
she mutters to walls
that never let her in.
