How Balanchine Spelled Despair

In a PBS documentary, from a drawer
the ballerina pulled a love poem
penned by the late choreographer
who told of his "disper,"
a Russian accent transliterated
in a tearoom, blinis
followed by impossible desserts,
but better digested than his "disper,"
disappearing, dispersed in paradisio,
spurned by baby katydids
like inhuman Pavlovas, who
according to a biographer
preferred "some form of oral sex"
to what penetration might do
to her grand jeté.
"A cloud in pants," said Mr. B.
of himself, but clouds do not
eat jelly donuts, nor set
Schumann's Davidsbündlertänze
for dancers like wild horses
of Hans Baldung Grien.
That anist, that composer didn't mean
to throw themselves in a river, either:
It was just "disper."