L.A. Evening

'E. Booth heard the solemn whisper of the god of all arts. "I shall give you hunger and pain and sleepless nights, also beauty and satisfaction known to few, and glimpses of the heavenly life. None of these shall you have continually, and of their coming and going you shall not be foretold"'

*The Players' Club* Edward Booth's legacy.

It's at this time of day,
when the rollerbladers pass her window
and the sirens start somewhere far below
and the sun leaks into the ocean,
that she sits to the screening of her photographs.

Scenes from every stage of her life:
Olivier, holding her Ophelia,
then again with her slave girl
and Brando, swinging her Salvation Army Sarah
as if he'd just caught her.
Two with the queen --- mother and daughter.

She looks at them as the sun turns off
and the lights come up in the city of angels.
Freeze frames, silent films in which
the actors wear the faces of her friends
and speak in the off-screen voices
of those who have left her now, alone with the audience.

As always she leaves
before the roll call of the credits.
Tunes the dimmer switch into the night,
lets the dog in, puts the cats out ---
Checks the sensitivity of the intruder light.