Caleb Scott
There is a basicality in our aloneness, each
wet heart, stubborn dwarf, meting out
the single dark day
from a tiny cage, a complete solitary
confinement. We think the beating
of two of them through skin is a meeting, truce
of common understanding, but
the heart, all need, no want, wants
no partner, no friend in its constant begging,
that gripped fist, ignorant in a criminal hunger.
What the heart understands is not two-
handed. It knocks on its door for food
and gets it, knocks and knocks
and knocks, all need, no want,
then stops.
***
Caleb Scott is a writer and actor. His plays and performance pieces have been produced and presented at venues in New York City and around the country, including Classic Stage Company, HERE Arts Center, La MaMa ETC, the Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles, Diversafest in Tulsa and the Wooster Group’s Performing Garage. He is an associate artist with Colt Coeur Theater in New York and a founding member of the FLEET playwrights workshop in Los Angeles. Caleb’s writing has appeared in The Bellevue Literary Review, Nashville Review, Typishly Literary Journal and Eclipse, and his first book, U.F.O., was published in 2006 by PowerHouse Books. His films have screened in festivals all over the world, including the Toronto International Film Festival, Raindance in London, Cinequest in San Jose, Palm Springs International Film Festival and Aesthetica in York, UK. He has been a finalist for an Academy of Motion Pictures Nicholl Fellowship, a finalist for the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwrights Program at Juilliard, a nominee for Best Actor and Best Writer by the Kinsale Shark Awards, and his plays have been selected as finalists for the Playwrights Foundation Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the Eugene O’Neill Theater’s National Playwrights Conference. Caleb is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the recipient of a Dartmouth Senior Fellowship in Writing. He lives in Miami, Florida.