In Camera

for Jean-Paul Sartre

Exits are entrances - so actors tell -

To a space which they create

To make the watchers feel

The unseen is just as real

As the time their characters wait

In a room they know too well.

What is clear, however,

Within the double door

And seated on divans

Of ill-assorted colour

A knife absurdly left

Upon the wooden floor

Is that they cleave

To one another

They dare not peer into the hall

From their space without a mirror

For fear what might befall

If they should leave

They use their eyes to picture

What each wants not to see

And so remain alone

Unable to atone

Or flee the common hell

They make there for each other.

©Terry Hodgson2020