[Carl Copeland]

Thanks, Michael. I now have a name for something I’ve done often.

A few nits:

My tin ear heard only occasional rhymes until I noticed the terza rima. Even then, though, “boards/felt,” “judge’s/club” and “gone/shot” failed to ring my bell.

I scan two lines as tet and two as hex. It wouldn’t be hard to regularize them—by dropping “past and” from S17L3, for example (“past” is repeated a few lines later)—but it doesn’t concern me unless it does you. Three other lines are ambiguous: S1L2, S6L2 and S13L2 could either be headless or begin with an anapest. Since pent is default, I suspect the first two are headless and the third has an anapest.

I might quibble about punctuation in a few places, but that’s better left to your copyeditors. I’ll only suggest closing up “spotlit” and moving the comma in that line from after “screen” to after “and.”

“Flirting hooker” sounds a little like “handy repairman.”

The verb “mind” in the penultimate stanza struck me as a little off. You seem to mean “care,” and I’m sure you can find a dictionary entry to justify that, but I’m used to the negative, disapproving sense: Do you mind?

I never recommend radical cuts, because I feel unqualified, but I do find myself wishing there were less of Butch between the women in Manhattan and Brussels.

Brilliant concept for a poem, Michael. Wish I’d thought of it.