Shoot The Ballerina

When the revolution came,
Katya was in mid-air.
Her partner was so taken with the sight of the soldiers in their uniforms,
That he forgot himself
Like Jesus' luggage,
And forgot Katya as well.

She came down from the spinning embrace of God,
Not into her partner's strong hands,
But behind the blankness of his back
As he smiled at a cavalryman.
She fell like a sputnik
To the hard stage
And the monkey within
Howled Tchaikovsky flawlessly.

This is where they shoot me,
She thought, amazed.
My leg is broken
Just like the performance,
Just like the dynasty,
Or the regime.
This is where they shoot me
Quick and clean behind one pitch-perfect ear.

But the cavalryman lay dead
At the hands of the second violinist,
Who,
In fierce regret,
Shook him like a puppet to revive him
That he might rejoin the violence and stupidity of the moment.

Like an equine saint, came the cavalryman's horse.
She grabbed a stirrup,
And he plunged magnificently over each row of seats
As if they were river stones or fence rails.
Again,
Katya was launched Heavenward;
Her lips at his velvet ear whispered,
Tonight, we both escape the glue factory!

This time, when she came down,
It was on his back
On the cobbled street outside,
And they went like hell,
Like anything,
Like that,
Til the moon disappeared, a fresh-healed bone.
_______

for dverse OLN #6