What famous movie
is it we're recreating
each time we take the stage
to feign
such oscar-worthy
ignorance of our situation?
In order to succeed
we each must think:
I am the lead,
and everything else
is background information,
subject to being modified
from its original version,
formatted to fit screens
and edited for television.
Over the phone,
conversation feels safer—
by which I mean
more clandestine:
I quote lines
as if they were my own creations,
and you quip back
as if words were
raw ingredients
for making
years' worth of shared experiences
and not merely
their bleak
fermentation containers
stacked up deep
in the basement.
