Tuesday, June 28, 2022: Diana Rosen's poem "Attending an All-Female Shakespeare Play at a 99-seat Equity Theatre With No Budget and How it Was Better Than Broadway"

Rag-tag players fill the stage: five women

in black wear colorful aprons that become 

Duke’s capes that become old-lady shawls 

that become bridal gowns as the hapless 

Roderigo marries his Lady Love and Archer 

weds the Oldest Sister. Banal beige benches 

become church pews, tree stumps, fine silk 

upholstered chairs in the palace. Their voices, 

music; movements, ballet. We sit in stillness. 

No longer rag-tag, these players are magnificent 

pied pipers leading us into the Sherwood Forest 

to hide in a log cabin eluding monsters, stroll 

over the bridged moat into the castle where 

the King welcomes all to feast, join bejeweled 

dancers amongst lutes and flutes. Like twilight 

sealing the best winter’s day, the theatre darkens, 

then brightens like a clear sunny morn as we eke 

out, sad to leave, glad to be part of the dream.  

© 2022 Diana Rosen

Diana Rosen, an essayist, flash writer, and poet, has work in West Trade Review, poeticdiversity, Rattle, and As It Ought to be Magazine, among others in the U.S., the UK, India, Canada, and Australia. Her poetry has earned one Best of the Net and two Pushcart nominations and she released her first full-length poetry book, High Stakes & Expectations, in Spring, 2022. She writes content for websites on tea, spices, and coffee, and lives in Los Angeles. To read more of her work, please visit www.authory.com/dianarosen or www.thetinypublisher.com  An ARC of her poetry book is available to journal reviewers.