What Greta Now Knows

What Greta Now Knows

Her movie credits fade off the screen
at the end of a midnight take.
Who's to blame for those arched eyebrows,
who slaved as key grip, best boy?
And just where did they get that dog?

A silver-screened life
should come with a fancy rewind button,
the ability to begin at the dingy
end and go back
to the greenest opening scenes.

Greta now knows the players
who made a difference,
what violet-throated talent caused the rift
in the scripted dialogue,
who put dope in her hazelnut coffee.

It's always someone else's fault­
a splattering of garbled lies at some
drunken party, a bed she forgot
to sleep in, a screenwriter¹s sorrow
penned into the plot.

Greta now knows what grubby frames
should decorate the cutting-room floor.
She understands that love, like film,
is illusion. She trusts that life
is a good idea­-it just gets bad reviews.