Exit Dark Stages

To begin is to imply conclusion:
that there is a box in which to hold words,
as our bodies falter and fall towards
a hole in the ground or sliding curtain.
This much is certain: there will be an end,
but not a tidy tying-up of plots
or moral probity. Men in white hats;
women in black. Lines between stars, on hands,
around foreign lands and across each page
define no more than boundaries to break.
Where some build stone walls, I peep through a crack:
glimpse the next cage in a row of cages.
We exit dark stages without a script,
less actors than miners from closed-down pits.