Art Ticker

Frances Revel

Child Dancer on Sundays

Though I am
Dull, my concerns
Are effusive. My hour the early

            Hour of prime

            And blush. My spine climbs
            Its planar landscape. Hands
                        Curled over the barre, I practice

                                    Everything even

                                                                        My face. My spectral
                                                                        Duplicate bulls, tows, bevels
                                                                                    Her legs as I say, mounted

On the studio wall. She

                                                                                                And I, We get around
                                                                                                            Ourselves as the strangler
                                                                                                Fig might, fussing in

                                                                                                And out of embezzled

Shapes. Naming the room’s
Borders. The practice of clean
Lines — Cleanliness and

                                                                        Clandestine ceremony.

                        Work with my young
                        Will to attenuate. Good with sweat,
                        I flutter down the stairwell and home

                                          Again. Here we see I am a creature

                                                                                    Of literal ways. I do as instructed.
                                                                                           When handed a genoise cake,
                                                                                                 I move with it for

                        My spectators high

                                                                                    On kitchen stools.
                                                                        Slice by slice I tender
                                                                                    The sponging familial

                                    Testament, china-perched,

                                    Lemoned. The rare sun
                                    Enlivens, reaching through the
                                    Diamond grip of my curtsied

                                                      Legs. I make it prove

                                    Us. The neck hairs

                                                                                           Lift

Frances Revel was raised in Southern Delaware until age 14, when she enrolled in a residential Vaganova ballet conservatory in Maine. She was awarded the 2017 Aliki Perroti and Seth Frank Most Promising Young Poet Award from the Academy of American Poets, judged by Arthur Sze. Frances is a recent graduate of Bennington College and is currently an MFA candidate at Cornell University.

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