Pola Diva

FOUNDED IN 1912 BY HARRIET MONROE

VOLUME CXIV NUMBER 2

MAY 1969

JAMES MERRILL

POLA DIVA

After Ayoub Sinano

Sensational effects have subtle causes.

Whenever you sang Madame Butterfly

At the Pera

Opera

The crowd inhaled the garlic of your high

Flat C's, and therefore pelted you with roses.

Ah how your salad fragrances afloat

One fine day over doldrums canvas blue

In the Pera

Opera

Would merge with bosomy undulation to

Defray the steep expenses of each note.

Years later, in the dive where ends our tale,

You loll, mute queen (a lame divan for throne)

Of the Pera

Opera,

Whom evening's client, by your breath alone,

Knows to have been the Phanar's nightingale.