Exsultate Jubilate Poem by Timothy Liu

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