Barren Not Sterile
 
by Thomas Kretz
 
  An atmosphere in which something has got
  to happen: top models of the world confined
 

to a tent at the end of Piazza Navona sporting
  several fake towers no princess would resort to,
  even with flags streaming, hunks stretching up
  from moats holding Eurovision cameras, rich
  playboys from Germany, Japan, and Saudi
  Arabia seated amidst the lights of Cinecitta.
   
  For warmup a brigade of Italian pop singers
  wailing lungs out for a piece of the pie. No
  matter how softly the start the end a scream.
  Pipe scaffolding on Sant' Agnese in Agone
  has been commandeered by an AIDS faction,
  changing banners and signs every few minutes,
  clearly the target the world. But tonight beauty
  must keep sickness and ugliness in quarantine.
   
  Designers holding breath as creations parade
  to and from Berini's fountain of the Four Rivers,
  models represent continents in rare convergence.
  Champagne passed out under faint September stars,
  talent and ambition more numerous than bubbles;
   
  but nothing is born, only a scent in the distance
  of rain and temporary death to creatures wrapped
 

in extravagant and unlikely versions of themselves.