Donald Justice

The lights in the theater fail. The long racks Of costumes abandoned by the other dancers Trouble Celeste. The conductor asks If she is sad because autumn is coming on, But when autumn comes she is merely pregnant and bored. On her way back from the holidays, a man Who appears to have no face rattles the door To her compartment.How disgusting, she thinks; How disgusting it always must be to grow old. Dusk falls, and a few drops of rain. On the train window trembles the blurred Reflection of her own transparent beauty, And through this, beautiful ruined cities passing, Dark forests, and people everywhere Pacing on lighted platforms, some Beating their children, some apparently dancing. The costumes of the dancers sway in the chill darkness. Now sinking into sleep is like sinking again Into the lake of her youth. Her parents Lean from the rail of a ferryboat waving, waving, As the boat glides farther out across the waves. No one, it seems, is meeting her at the station. The city is frozen. She warms herself In the pink and scented twilight of a bar. The waiter who serves her is young. She nods assent. The conversation dies in bed. Later, She hurries off to rehearsal. In the lobby, Dizzy still with the weight of her own body, She waits, surrounded by huge stills of herself And bright posters announcing events to come. Her life—she feels it closing about her now Like a small theater, empty, without lights.

It's snowing this afternoon and there are no flowers. There is only this sound of falling, quiet and remote, Like the memory of scales descending the white keys Of a childhood piano—outside the window, palms! And the heavy head of the cereus, inclining, Soon to let down its white or yellow-white. Now, only these poor snow-flowers in a heap, Like the memory of a white dress cast down . . . So much has fallen. And I, who have listened for a step All afternoon, hear it now, but already falling away, Already in memory. And the terrible scales descending On the silent piano; the snow; and the absent flowers abounding.