By Noji Bajet

It did not break him, of course, because he understood
that his boy sways the other way around.
But he likes to hop, to twist, to glide
Look, he is ablaze with a genius flame! 
under the tropical sun, beyond the doubting glare
he possessed. Once.
“But there are no ballerinas on this island.” 
He pricked the bubble dream of a mermaid wanting to walk,
Only he had feet, only he had the way to make it real.
And so he blossomed like the daughter he never had, 
like the lilies beside a stream.

And now. His bronzed, olive skin dazzles in the spotlight
with his laced leotard, majestic frills, studded with crystals
He is Michelangelo’s David dancing on the stage,
whirling like a dervish. And yet. There are tears
from his Guerlain kohl-rimmed eyes,
the same eyes who once saw a stranger in himself,
in another home, in another land by the cerulean ocean.

It was him, he who braved Moscow unafraid,
its merciless winters, the hunger, the sickness, 
the melancholia of it all only to dance, dance, and dance.
Yet nothing kills the rhythm within—even this wilting life!
For the beats belong to his soul, in eternity. 
For he is the son of an island man, you see.
Whom these gentle movements came from,
with a fisherman’s hands stirring the calm waters. 
Whom this brave heart came from,
from a father’s heart of a mother he never had. 
How cruel yet how sweet. So he can always remember, please!
His face, his shadow, his scent of sea spray. 

He was at the Pushkinskaya Square, 
he was under the lime trees, 
his voice is among the hundred voices of the boulevards, 
of the cries of the loons soaring high above the Conservatoire,
hoping one of them came from the island of his dreams.

This is his last hurrah, bathed in the light of adoration
with a mad crowd, with a thundering applause for his great élan. 
He will leave his Maison Repettos behind 
and touch the sand once again, once again.
Bring the curtain down, let him approach the moonlight.
As the ghost comes to him, dancing with love and joy
“My boy, my boy. He made it to Bolshoi!”