Dido and Aeneas
The Queen of Carthage sings that “he is gone”
In white-smoke pain. Purcell gives smoke-white tongue
To those who lose their men. She acts as pawn;
He swells her aching throat and tortured lung
With passions of the flames that fill her, long
Before she scales the pyre and vocal heights
Of grief the color of the pale-smoke song.
Not only women miss their men. Loss blights
The lives of others when their men depart.
Males lose their men as agonized as queens.
The tall castrato singing Dido’s part
Knows deeply from healed wounds just what it means
To yearn for masculinity we need.
The aria despairs of off-white seed.