The seats are empty for an audience of my ghost
as a parsing of silence begins an intimate soliloquy
alone. In a theater of my mind feeing the pulse of
echos presence. My phantom’s hunger for applause
but there are no roses thrown at my feet. No critics
to applause as I seek the kind that never comes.
Like prayers whispered into a dead stone
or letters mailed to an address that doesn’t exist.
And for voices that never clap yet still I bow,
returning for an encore.