after Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake
‘Tchaikovsky’s his vice’ — Roland Barthes.
If you’re still looking, after they’ve called last drinks

and the boy has emptied the ashtrays and collected the glasses,

you can see the silhouettes of infamous men

slip down side streets, dodge streetlights

along footpaths and then disappear somewhere

into the shadows of the public park.
There, between the trees that surround the lake,

neither close nor far apart,

they shift on their feet like horses

waiting flank by flank behind starting gates

until the men arrive, dressed as swans, and begin their dance

during which nobody fucks and nobody drowns.