Giselle

The show is about to start and all we can see are feet,
wrapped and bound, feel the wooden floor
for knots. In the gap

between curtain and stage
twenty pairs of ballet slippers arc
and bend, pirouettes that make leotards blur.

When the curtains rise, our eyes
rise too, focus for a moment
on faces instead of feet.
But my attention is caught midway, amazed
by the sea of protruding hips, wrists, rib cages that rise
to jut above tutus, imagine
bones and bloody toes tucked carefully
behind pink silk, delicately made up
faces, flesh pulled too tight.

I think of Giselle, the whisper
of Russian voices, so beautiful
they say, watch her panting body

collapsed

in the middle of the stage,
as the audience
weeps.