she defected sometime in the late twenties
in her late twenties her life for one wild
twenty years after was a whirlwind
of unwashed hands her toes like ten grapes;
the Russian ballerina princess living in Paris
working at the Moulin Rouge as a singer;
she couldn't sing & the crowd loved it;
Degas said she sounded like a strangled canary;
so we called her oiseau étranglé