I Passed Laertes On My Way To The Play
I passed Laertes on the street as he was
out walking before the play began. Of course
he wasn’t in costume – I didn’t know he was
Laertes then, on my own way to the play –
yet his face was distinct, our glances brief
but “knowing,” as we were each out walking
to clear our heads, breathing the fresh air in,
brisk (both the air and our gaits) moments
before the stage and seats separated us and
held us together, he performing his lines,
anticipating each moment, each response
to his father, his king, his sister, his friend-
turned-enemy. Too much his father’s son
(as Ophelia, too, had “too much” Polonius in her
to be able to rise above, too much the
obedient even to leap from her own frying
pan into Hamlet’s fire).
But, out walking before the curtain call, unburdened,
not yet at war again with the Medieval and Modern world,
jogging across the busy street, each of us brimming
with the night to come, he and I did for an instant meet.
--Michael Knisely
