Take the F train to Manhattan to 23rd Street,
walk to Nineteenth Street between Fifth Avenue

and Avenue of the Americas - the map of North
South and Central Americas in the faces

of the dancers squeezing into the elevator, bubbles
of laughter, to the eleventh floor: Alina from Cuba,

Beatriz from Puerto Rico, Julio from Argentina,
Robert from Texas, Kevin from Massachusetts,

the motley modern dance ladies with unshaved
armpits, Mother Gaia thighs next to the sylphs

in pink silk ribboned toe-shoes grey plastic pants
to take off more sweat on already evaporated frames.

Ernie tells me - The word is don't pick up the lettuce girl
too quickly or she'll fart, and then you have to carry

her all across the stage with your head hid under her
skirt. He winks. Then Ernie, Jack, Harry, Greg, don't come

to class anymore, I visit them in hospitals look at
their wan smiles, faces pale then dot with lesions.

At One-Hundred and Fifty-Ninth Street in the Harkness
Pavilion, suitable for ballet dancers, I sit with John

wearing a New York City Ballet cap. He takes off
the cap and shows me the X and O circles on his head

marked for radiation. He holds my hand and weeps
- no tears - they've all dried now.

I remember him in class, long legs start at my waist,
in black tights and white t-shirt, giacometti-slim

but elastic like a rubber band. He always says hello
calls my name like I'm his best friend in the world.

My mother - he says - won't visit me, she doesn't believe
in my illness. Sit with me, please.

We sit together. And then his bed is gone.
I still see him: his legs make semaphores, mid-leap.

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— dedicated to Johnny B.

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by Annie Bien

Annie Bien received her first playwriting commission at the Soho Theatre Company in London. Her poetry has appeared in Quattrocento, Snakeskin, Lily, Loch Raven Review, Andwerve, Worm, Cadenza, Centrifugal Eye, andTimes Online. More poems are forthcoming in Miller's Pond and Kaleidowhirl. Her fiction has appeared in The Wonderful World of Worders, Guildhall Press. She has been a Pushcart nominee, runner up for the Georgetown Review Contest 2006, and on shortlists for the Guardian Poetry Workshop and Strokestown 2007 International Poetry Competition. She studies Tibetan Buddhist text translation with Robert Thurman and Lozang Jamspal.

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© 2007 Annie Bien