Swan Lake

 The ballerina was going to die anyway,

Swan Lake and all,

But the war babies went wild.

Their chubby little bodies

belied their supposed innocence.

Look at their faces,

creepy and middle-aged.

Frustrated baby-men with weapons.

The black chorus looks on, marbled and unmoved

at the premature death.  She had

such great bone structure, and I bet

she spoke both Russian and French.

Cupid’s army, black swan queen,

a randy hunter in the wood.

Doomed from the first note,

the first flight, the first arrow

dipped in the shadows by little men

trapped in infant skin.  Doomed

by all who cannot abide the power

of one woman’s dance,

a swan alive in the world’s wood.