POETRY

For whom do you wake up
to stretch your aches
on the creaking floor?
And late at night, after
the exhausting routine,
who reaches out to applaud
when you close your front door?

In this age of cheap beauty,
and indecent exposure
in movies and on TV,
who listens to a piano
repeating over and over,
the same bars of the same score?

There used to be something;
an evocation of purity
a story to be told
with gestures, or a waltz,
the crowd all dressed up
to be seen, or for the scene.

Little girls, wide eyed
imagined being carried
by dashing and muscular men
in decors fit for dreams,
while in front, strongly lit
fluttered their little white gown.

They explained, teachers,
their reflected image
mimicking your moves,
what drugs to keep you thin
and what's the price of a fairy
or a rat in this old gray town.

Year by year, my fading,
my athletic beauty,
for whom do you dole
your heavy black makeup?
Only I remain in the front row,
half smiling and half in frown.

jam09

(dedicated to the memory of Yelena Avedisian)