Léotard “qui tenait le spectateur
sous l’empire d’un Plaisir
indefinissible »
did not die on the flying trapeze
in some circus tragedy.
He died of smallpox
after inventing a new thrill altogether
at the same time Baudelaire changed the weather
of the modern.
Baudelaire doesn’t mention him at all
- while his “memoirs”, an illiterate scrawl
bring out a snide remark from the Goncourts.
“… la hardiesse des sauts périlleux
L’imprévu des case-cou”
-an alexandrine arrested in mid-motion
a caesura crossed, from one bar to the other.
His suit, which showed the effortless bother
of the muscular ripple of his too mortal flesh
was named for him. In the brief spasm
of his flip and grab, orgasm
washed across the faces of the gaslit crowd.
Did Emma B. in outtake carry home some sense
of the sex in this suspense
a syncopation lost?
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