[Scene II. Bathtub.]

Reading Socrates’ death in the white bath.

I don’t understand it.

Outside, wind and centuries.

A blue night.

My children joke into their pillows.

Their faces.

                                       [Laughing]

What’s it about? It’s bedtime.

My children prepare themselves

for their school play.

They whistle themselves to sleep.

Music trims,

the small jaws open.

Their pale torsos rise and fall.

Cheeks hot under still-warm lamps.

Feet through pyjamas,

toes print the surface of a darkened stage.