twirls on the tips of a carnation
while the radio scratches out a morning hymn.
Daylight has not ventured as far
as the windows---the walls are still dark,
shadowed with the ghosts
of oversized gardenias. The ballerina
pirouettes to the wheeze of the old
rugged cross, she lifts
her shoulders past the edge
of the jewelbox lid. Two pink slippers
touch the ragged petals, no one
should have feet that small! In China
they do everything upside down:
this ballerina has not risen but drilled
a tunnel straight to America
where the bedrooms of the poor
are papered in vulgar flowers
on a background the color of grease, of
teabags, of cracked imitation walnut veneer.
On the other side of the world
they are shedding robes sprigged with
roses, roses drifting with a hiss
to the floor by the bed
as, here, the sun finally strikes the windows
suddenly opaque,
noncommital as shields. In this room
is a bed where the sun has gone
walking. Where a straw nods over
the lip of its glass and a hand
reaches for a tissue, crumpling it to a flower.
The ballerina has been drilling all night!
She flaunts her skirts like sails,
whirling in a disk so bright,
so rapidly she is standing still.
The sun walks the bed to the pillow
and pauses for breath (in the Orient,
breath floats like mist
in the fields), hesitating
at a knotted handkerchief that has slid
on its string and has lodged beneath
the right ear which discerns
the most fragile music
where there is none. The ballerina dances
at the end of a tunnel of light,
she spins on her impossible toes---
the rest is shadow.
The head on the pillow sees nothing
else, though it feels the sun warming
its cheeks. There is no China;
no cross, just the papery kiss
of a kleenex above the stink of camphor,
the walls exploding with shabby tutus...
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