Bellissimo as Faust

The sky replied with rain—the wet, unfair world!—

then pure movement: four limbs rising,

veins in the darkness, passage of thought, cloud

opening. What you say? What came rippling

after rejection, through the night?

There he stood, red-haired before me

with a crown of cold waves and whiffs

of lake-weed. There for the taking.

Crowning me said You're mine. Speak your mind.

By morning the director called. I was chosen.

                                                    
—Derek Webster

Originally published in the February/March 2002 issue of Boston Review