Watching the dance

1. Balanchine’s

Poor savage, doubting that a river flows

But for the myriad eddies made

By unseen powers twirling on their toes,

Here in this darkness it would seem

You had already died, and were afraid.

Be still. Observe the powers. Infer the stream.

2. Discotheque

Having survived entirely your own youth,

Last of your generation, purple gloom

Investing you, sit, Jonah, beyond speech,

And let towards the brute volume VOOM whale mouth

VAM pounding viscera VAM VOOM

A teenage plankton luminously twitch.

               James Merrill