I tense my thumb over the bottom right-hand corner
of the page and recite a block of text
transcribed from a dead man’s notebook.

A stuttered requiem without accompaniment.

When I run out of lines to botch,
I bow my head politely and leave the stage
before anyone with a list of names and numbers
in front of them can thank me “for showing up.”

Outside, a woman dressed like a carnival growls at me,
or to me, in a language I don’t understand.
The audition sheet she grips prompts me
to point her in the right direction.

I watch her strut from my present to my past,
and neither of us is smiling.
Maybe she’s foreign to this place,
and maybe, so am I.