A Dancer

Beauty was not born mutable that time:

no motion encircled it and let it go;

steady as vision and unvarying

it kept its ideal state until the dark.

Someone tears up the unsold tickets;

the doors are locked ; and the terraced darkness

is left to draughts and the settling dust ;

sleep advances, meeting little resistance.

We have the smoke blown on the avenue,

the expected expenses, the usual wear and tear,

the records misplaced, lost sooner or later.

Familiar hands stretched in alien gestures

will make us wonder, turning to windows

and the wind blowing out of the grey east.