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.