Tiana Clark

After Orpheus

Pas de Deux with Eurydice

The son of Apollo               has no voice                here—
only the music               of Stravinsky’s symphony.
The dancers sing                with their unbolted bodies,

wholly lengthened                and           phantasmagoric.
The Dark Angel leads                him through   the lyre,
through unfolding                              underworld—his hand:

another type of lung, breathing.                Balanchine
wanted the audience to see each finger                splayed
and reaching,                extended. But                when the anxious

Orpheus tears off his mask, the ballerina                collapses
for the floor. The curtain billows                and the oboes
are gone. I think about patience                and its stupid song.

I can’t wait—                Yes, I’m always looking                back
                                                                                  at my dead.

Tiana Clark's "After Orpheus" as well as "After Apollo" can be read in the print edition of The Arkansas International 2.

Tiana Clark is the author of the chapbook Equilibrium, selected by Afaa Michael Weaver for the 2016 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. She is the winner of the 2016 Academy of American Poets Prize and 2015 Rattle Poetry Prize. Tiana is currently an MFA candidate at Vanderbilt University. Her writing has appeared in or is forthcoming from The New Yorker, Indiana Review, Muzzle Magazine, The Journal, and elsewhere. Find her online at tianaclark.com.