IN BATTERY PARK

Running in a marathon
before a decade
of decadence
overtook the Big Apple
the tall Moscow dancer
was in a delirium
after the war and Gulag
ripped off his family
moving to "Little Russia"
by row houses
in Brighton Beach
in told me his mother
had a heart attack
when she saw
all the food
in the supermarket
he spoke Esperanto
and we discussed
Pushkin and Yevtushenko
then he joined
my theater company
and now is in Hollywood.