“...but what is the question?” he'd asked, as the scene began to tilt.
She gulped in air once more, walking through the mindframe, paces
Echoing hollowly on the star's floor. Breath. “Turnabout
Is fair play,” he'd said, though there had ever seemed to be a glitch
In his processing, as though he'd recently been forced into a trading
Of minds, a transplant of thoughts, with the boy who starred in the play

That had been put on a few weeks ago, a modestly deranged play
About a boy and his spear, a boy who takes up his spear to have a tilt
With a garden fence and ends up (by the end, of course) trading
Fates with those who live behind the fence. He was run through his paces
By the playwright, who seemed to remain undisturbed by the single glitch
In this tainted masterpiece: the child actor never seemed to turn about

But remained entirely with his back to the audience despite the cries of, “Turn!” “About
Time that young lad turned around and let us see his face, how can he play
The part of a fool if his face is so somber, as if he had some glitch,
Some defect he could not reveal to us. Why does his head tilt
To one side, why does his gaze list? Why are his paces
Somber and uncaring? This is no actor, this is no buffoon! Trading

“Faces would be the best thing for this young man, yes, trading
The looks of the brown-eyed child with the acting ability of a stone.” “Turn! About-
Face!" continued the demands, and asphyxiation set in. His paces
Did not slacken, did not slacken against the hollow of the stage, but instead his feet began to play
With a dancing rhythm that brought him offstage, choking as he was, to tilt
And tip, to spill over the thing that once he was. The glitch

In his mind was making him twitch. One glitch, two glitch. Twitch in time, rhyme, to a glitch,
Ain't it rich? Like a child going ballistic missile over a lost trading
Card, he would pant and search with his eyes, and the room would tilt
And spin, and begin to dance with him. Pirouette, promenade, turn about
And face the floor. The room would embrace him, lead him out to play
Among the lilies of the field (they do not tilt, neither do they spin), those solemn paces

Grant broken crumbling pieces of peace, a sweet victim who tramps through waiting paces,
And crushes pacemakers set to maximum stun... Perhaps there is no glitch
In the system, there never was, and they had sent her here to play
The part of the cloistered in mourning... to train for trading
Her soul with a properly ornate live one. He'd said that turnabout
Was fair play. But she'd hit the machine one too many times. Tilt.