Sonnet: Can't We Just Get Along?

Reading is a co-production, if you ask me,

and you'd best be careful I don't write something gauche,

something requiring pratfalls, or tangos task free,

or a soliloquy where you are naked and louche.

Of course, you could always have a go at me, too --

flub the lines, or lip-doodle frenzy, or explode!

or hop from the movie screen like Jeff in Cairo.

You're the performer and the writer's antipode.

Some people say that reality is shared space,

where we negotiate the meaning of being,

which is fine, if you stay the feck out of my face;

then we might just come to some eye-to-eye seeing.

If you don't pull my string, then I won't yank your chain.

Perform this: no bleach can blot out the human stain.