Theda Bara's Teeth
Astrikos Katoikos
In Madame Mystery, she smiled in borrowed light
Her lips had formed that smile so long ago
The film preserved her teeth, still gleaming white
While flesh endured what film would never show
An audience had loved that painted face
Its practiced tenderness, its wicked art
The camera gave each fleeting smile a place
Beyond the brief dominion of the heart
Decades had passed, the marble lay defaced
The broken grave lay open to the sky
And there, where all her beauty was effaced
The teeth that once had gleamed were left to lie
Those were her teeth, the very same
That gleamed beneath the studio light
The living woman left the frame
Her smile remained in black and white
The lips were gone, the actress dispossessed
Of all the beauty once assembled there
Her teeth alone survived the years of rest
And lay exposed to the indifferent air
No photograph could seem as strange to me
As finding what the photograph had shown
A century had passed, yet I could see
The very teeth that once had been her own
The smile had lasted scarcely half a breath
A moment fashioned for the camera's eye
The teeth had never understood her death
Nor learned what made the living laugh or cry
Those were her teeth, the very same
That gleamed beneath the studio light
The living woman left the frame
Her smile remained in black and white
The screen still offered what the grave denied
A woman whom the years could never age
Her lips still parted, beautiful with pride
While death remained beyond the silver stage
The witness saw the remnants of that smile
Its former radiance, its mortal cost
He stood beside the marble for a while
And mourned the beauty that the world had lost
And someday, on a screen not yet conceived
Her smile may greet a stranger yet unborn
The living will depart, the dead be grieved
While light preserves the face that time has worn
Those were her teeth, the very same
That gleamed beneath the studio light
The living woman left the frame
Her smile remained in black and white