fire in that square floodlit by crimson
gels left onstage a floating red silk
scarf that snaked around the nimblest calves
unable to outlast Mozart's legacy
or Pater's gemlike flame abandoned dream
erased by edicts of the blood the song
the space with both feet off the ground
if only for a moment elephantine
memory as the curtain falls full weight
the voice of Kathleen Battle amplified
fades away five years to the day and still
your body as it was caught between
Isadora and the wheel and not what it has
become a form that those who live must bear