Diva
by Ivan Young
The voice quivers, shimmers, shivers the darkness,
Cecilia Bartoli holding high C on the verge of still waters.
La donna del lago sings while behind scenery
a voice whispers into a mic to bring up green filters,
the licking mimic of the sheen of water, the muted
pit below the stage where the lean cello’s notes
carry across the seats, the ushers, the old woman
fumbling for mints in her purse, and in the lobby
a girl is talking on her phone, the music scratching
like children at the door. She’s alone and telling
her friend that she’s bored, that he’s caught in the net
of her voice and will not budge from his seat.
She lights a cigarette then sees the sign, puffs smoke
into the air anyway and stares at the man behind
the counter as if to challenge him to say anything
about the slim menthols or her low cut dress
or the bright red lipstick carved into a point. She licks
her teeth in a sexy way, but he’s staid and ignores
the play. She wants champagne and then a steak
still rare with blood she tells the friend. She’s sure
he won’t know how to begin to react if she slips
a stockinged foot into his crotch beneath the table
cloth, but she might do it anyway just to see him blanch.
She stubs the butt and pushes through the doors,
fingers to her ears, now the baseline thumping,
now the Diva’s voice is breaking, half-singing,
half-whispering in his ear, as she takes her seat,
leans in and makes her presence known.
Ivan Young, a professor at Salisbury University, is new to the online publications circuit, but has
published poems with Fourteen Hills, Cider Press Review, Cream City Review, North American Review,
Baltimore Review, and Comstock Review, among others. He has also published a chapbook, A Shape in the Waves,
through the South Carolina Poetry Initiative.