She steps in to the organ drone,
to the faces singing from the walls
and the windows, the nave
they are all echoing her
vibrating the daughter who
doesn’t say what needs to be said,
stirring up ‘neurosis’ – some say
‘overly dramatic’ – others
They lay scores
under her shoes –
she treads copies that repeat
and reorder into phrases –
a requiem of heart and ears
sounding into muscle and violence,
into tenderness, reverberating over
the biggest attention-seeker
and the ball, the body –
air-twisting into the landing and the
‘don’t cross me here’,
but curling into a neat circle when she goes home.
A chorus of beauty, cruelty
humble and hyped up, conceit and
she keeps moving step after step
towards the altar – face repeated in the congregation
ringed by mirror, then mirror,
then faces of mirror and hands of mirror
applauding and applauding and applauding and applauding themselves
only themselves.