Wild eyes
hands-to-cheeks
mouth wide open—
we know the look
it's so cliché
those ******' marauders
in Hollywood stole it
from the realm of
authentic expression—
yet there she stood
as if rehearsing for
a midday melodrama
patiently awaiting
the studio lighting,
the face powder,
the camera, the action...
but no set crew was coming
there was no show
nor lines to rehearse...
there was only a frozen moment
in which the life she knew
and the life she could not
have foreseen existed at once,
bound together by an
over-played expression of horror.