Paradis, C'est les Autres

There are others here
and you, dancing
Pas de chat
Pas de cheval
Pas de poisson

I am forsaken; I am nothing.

 

That stage was our bedroom

Those eyes, those feet, the sweat 

The floorboards, unfinished, natural

A boombox, plugged into the power point that sometimes did not work

And the trains in the morning;

In the night

There was music though we had no need for it
We could bend to the deepest position; a grand-plié then

Pas de basque
Pas de valse
Pas de deux.

But one evening after the ballet I tore the lids from my eyes. How was I to sleep? Was I to miss your delicate face for even one second?   

And now there are others here

and you, dancing up there in the light

I am a beast alone with a torch

Guiding the crowds to their seats

Nobody speaks.

I am in hell.

Fairies

There are dust particles floating through the sunlight by the window in your room. You must know, these are not angels or fairies or any other grand imagining. What you see, on this Sunday morning, when it is just warm under a blanket in your grandmother's chair, as you stare and smile and dream of kisses and crosswords while I sleep in your bed, spent, are tiny balls of human skin, animal dander, other people's hair, insect remains, dirt, and bug shit. If only I could sleep forever.

When NATO Killed the Children

What was Tony Danza doing
when NATO killed our children
with the bombs.
On our knees
over their bodies
we begged and we wept and we did not know their faces.
Our own children who had been born and nothing else.
The skin was gone and we prayed for their souls
and we cursed the planes and the pilots and the kings of the enemies.
But there was nothing of consequence that could be done
until the noon hour when we watched re-runs of Who's the Boss.
Without children, in the rubble, even this now was not the same.
We wondered if Tony Danza could have done more for Danny Pintauro's career.