The night could smother you if Natalie
Dessay weren’t sprinting and leaping bright stars,
her soprano enthralling satellites
and asteroids; if Pavarotti’s par
excellence of Nessun Dorma wasn’t
blessing the universe, Makarova’s
lyric flow weren’t caught on film, pressed against
our breasts as we’re filled with grace. Take over
our psyches, Burton, with your recorded
monologue, Hamlet brooding alone—each
of us is with you. Bear us accorded
with our too, too solid flesh, with our reach
into delicate memory, our sum
of visions: who we are, what we’ll become.
Roger Armbrust
February 16,
2013
