In a house shaken by wheels
On a street ironically named Utopia,
In middle-class Flushing, Queens,
He created a shoebox theater
In which a lovely ballerina
Named Tamara Toumanova
Could dance for him forever
The ballet of endless transience,
The beauty of every minute,
Which shapes up and then blows away.
She was already dead, to be sure,
But he had saved a hairpin she had owned
And a piece of cloth from a tutu
She had worn, and both at once,
And, making, he dreamed away
The arrogance of death.
—Stephen Stepanchev
Published in the 2010-03-12 issue: View Contents
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