To Carolina Kostner on Boléro
XXII Olympic Winter Games, Sochi
Because I live for the comeback
staged in black—cold expanse waiting
to be writ—because I love
the way one arm lifts
in time to what Ravel imagined as a masterpiece
with no music, repetition made magic
only because each shift
intensifies, piston or hammer
in the ear, I love the ice that brings us
here, across the years spent counting spins—
an illusionist’s flight of doves,
or samara in the rain.
Because I’ve walked through gray cities,
gray futures, I love the sudden break
as evidence of nothing, exactly,
but the surface of things tattooed with light
before a cloud elides the hill.
I still believe in beauty—
a measured movement, a name fogged
on a bus pane.
Whatever we love is already leaving.
Whatever we touch, dissolves.