Nothing Becomes Her As The Leaving

a poem by Douglas Holder

It is not her place to stay.
It is her's to exit--
When the fat lady
drops her last
sonorous note
it is then
when she leaves us
with only our applause
perhaps her scent
behind the empty
flapping of a scrim
the hollow swing
of a back stage door.
And this is
when she is most beautiful
when she is
no more.