Exsultate Jubilate

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