Stage Magic

Let's talk about the cost of cheap theatrics

Of being taken in by a superficially charming, sham serious charlatan

Someone who never stops playing the person

Instead of being the person

Someone who asks if the lighting is good and if you have their best side

During a funeral

Or a visit with a dying loved one

Or a ceremony that ought to transform them

Into the wisest, most courageous, most temperate

Version of themselves

The makeup becomes a carapace

Hiding the insectile machinery

Of a chitinous creature whose only desire

Is the approbation of those who ignored or derided them

Before they'd fully hatched

Anyone with a modicum of taste and sound judgment

Sees the wires pretty quickly, and knows

That the levitation is a gimmick; a clever fraud

Not to be believed

A distraction; only a colorful diversion

But what if the mountebank starts to believe in their own power?

What if they decide to throw away their lines, and wing it?

Suppose we all find them droll in an odd way

Suppose we learn of calamities that they have narrowly escaped

Such that pity or astonishment moves us to play along

For a while

We must never forget how we met

Immersed in a cheap forgery of real magic

Late at night, when we were bored

The counterfeiter never makes a real dollar

When the hack saws someone in half, they stay that way

Unlike reality, shows end

Curtains were made to fall

When the cheap tricks are over

And it's time to get back to work

Lest we starve