Hands to chest, as if to contain
the irrepressible soul, revving
the heart for all that it can give,
a countertenor bloomed in a dream
into Maria Callas, the swift
scythe of her gaze arcing in panic,
her head opening to emit pure
lightning, as Scarpia tortures
her lover, then claims her anguish
as his prize, anguish now mine
to hold in this fist of my body
before snapping free like a kite,
the stark, ensuing silence like a rip
in time, as what we are fails to
matter—what we failed to become
becomes the aria we cannot forget.
