Lost Lines

I've had the dream before, but never in
such detail or despair, just sitting there
upon a stage and losing it, the lines I
mean. The only one of six or seven others
in the cast who suffers from a total blank.
Hopeful I can salvage things before the
audience can figure out I'm done for, I
begin to dart around to see if I can find
a script tucked somewhere near, and can't.
The audience begins to stir and murmur,
then slowly leave, and who can blame them?
Everyone is disappointed and it's all my fault.
I knew the lines. I did. I knew them well,
and now they've vanished-- lines, the cast
and crew -- and I'm alone, the lights turned off,
the door now locked. I'm left to wonder
just what heavy thoughts have pushed my lines
from conscious memory, and where the words
are hiding, suddenly afraid they might escape
my lips inopportunely, out of character.
It was a drama, after all, my part not someone
even Nice. I could be anywhere,
and all that harshness will decide it's still
Act I, and people will not understand,
they'll think me rude or mad, this woman
laughing right out loud because it means
I didn't lose the lines for good.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014