Merrill Cole
It’s not that no one will hear it. It’s not that
her lips can’t move, or his eyes won’t close tight.
All the lights stay on,
as if the audition never ends.
Unable to catch himself in the mirror,
he’s afraid no one sees him. In the next scene,
lying in an open field, he waits for dawn to reveal
the burn marks of his disappearance.
Her film is the silent one.
She loops the cloth around her arm.
After her mouth has moved, someone we don’t see
puts on placards the words she didn’t say.
It’s the last word in romantic comedy.
The blood is flowing off-screen.
There is a field in Iraq, in Gaza, an airfield near Kabul.
There is red meat for the dinner table.
You can’t be too careful, with the camera recording.
Tuck in your napkin. You might be the star.
In this scene, you kiss him greedily. In the next,
you drive a stake into her heart.
Two women kissing, and the film bombed. No,
the field was bombed, my close-up taken.
These gestures of solidarity have become cliché,
as though the blood meant nothing.
How many striking ways to drive home the same point.
How to be dreamy always. How many air strikes.
The scene is set. The extras are shooting up.
All your lines will have to be improvised.