the next audition

he turned, drawing that sardonic grimace away, into
shadow, into his hungry place, where i am lost, ghosting
on our chalk marked stage, some mere and pallid refuse

and i have no lines, but it is unreadably scripted, worn
written in another summer, summoning some other lover
paced for a clever fox-trot, i'm a stumbler in clumsy

three-quarter, bruised by an erotic tango that will never
love me, can't lead me, can't swoop bow spin dervish me,
but in the curtains i can breathe my little haggard asides

take away this face that leaves his audience in sniggardly
conversation, thumbing my inadequacy with hoots and
callow razzes, tossing their reviews into our set, into my

humiliation, take away this face before the house lights
give chase, and cut across the illusion of my role, of my
perfect inability, and he keeps my costume for the next

audition