Dora Gerson

This poem was first published by Narrow House in Six Writers from Baltimore.

Dramatis personae: Silence herself,
like jeux d’eau sings, oiseau triste
on the brink of paradise, fragment 
of silent film history, accompanist
regular of the inevitable vampire.
In motion she pictures escape:
her German family Germany free
in the Netherlands like oiseaux tristes.
Could film only make silent history
under the frame of eternity 
glance still would she kiss
and gone not last beyond recall.