Leslie Caron as the dancer, Jane Avril.
XXVIII
Aprilis
N. P. van Wyk Louw
Jane Avril dances in Paris
scarlet lips, girdle pitch:
underneath like a smile
the thighs in braided muscle twitch
– “We” must (Cézanne insisted):
in shrill, sterile and sunlit-language glow
fix the soul (apparently) of “Old Masters”
and find “mind” and “wisdom” somehow –
those beautiful steel rods in black
shoot cleanly like an engine-arm blow
in sectors, minimal, and round in quartered
circles: shin and toe.
[Translated by Johann de Lange]