Scripted

And when you left the room,
did they reassemble for the dress-rehearsal,
rapt in the disingenuous glow
of a space heater? Did words bubble
to the surface of their tiny mouths
as if attributed to a celestial source?

Say you walked in unannounced,
caught a snippet of tomorrow’s scenes
and, there in the round,
witnessed the near silences,
the spaces between two voices:
a slow, persistent breathing
where your own lines were meant to be.