She steps out, timidly.
Takes a step back.
Peeks her delicate face around the corner of the curtain,
brushes her fingertips against the velvety air
and jumps back in surprise,
exclaiming a silent "ooh!" in shock at the sheer volume
of coat racks that sit, waiting,
necks elongated,
hooks focused in front of them,
coats hanging off like dead bodies.
She takes a breath, lifts her bare foot and points her toes,
and
steps.
A beam of light finds her arch and illuminates it like it's a star on fire.
"ah," she breathes, and floats her arm so it's parallel to her pointed toes
and it too, falls into this radiance, the tiny hairs lit up
shining.
She then giggles, and takes an entire step with her whole body
so that she is standing in the middle of a fire and everyone can see.
The coat racks, say nothing.
She holds her fingers in front of her face, palms up
and she begins to play with the light.
She pushes it down, she picks it up, she lets it trickle
and spill between her fingers, down on to the wooden surface.
Like butter, it melts quickly and
soon is pooling at her feet
A coat rack coughs, another fumbles for a cough candy.
She is somewhere else, beginning to disassemble
she removes her sweater, and quickly the light finds her
vanilla shoulder smooth as a stone.
Her entire body is vulnerable, is being attacked and admired and
beautified by the brilliance.
She is white and shining and red hair is spilling down her back and over
her shoulders and tumbling everywhere as the beam explodes
and now beams and beams of light are on her,
from every direction
and she is dancing,
she is lifting her entire body up and swimming,
taking great long strokes, coming up only to breathe occasionally
when she forgets she still has air.
She does flips and turns and the backstroke
and yellow is all around her white and red
and she is smiling and suddenly,
the coat racks in the audience have all revealed their human selves
and they are clapping - clapping! for her,
for the brilliance, for the light and the sunshine that is now
catapulting, jumping, dancing out of her own body
the white and the red and the vanilla smoothness and she cannot remember
the last time she felt so alive and okay and free and careless.
and she slows down, and she stops swimming.
She plants her feet firmly on the ground and the lights fade,
but just a tad.
She pulls a cloth of light with her as she lifts her hand again to her face,
the cloth falling between her fingers like silky sand.
She touches her face and the audience - gasps in unison.
[For there is much uncertainty, you see]
She imagines she is something much bigger than the imagination
because she is light and she is alive.
The coat rack humans erupt in applause, spilling bright yellow marbles as they do
they, falling into them and rising up as they too begin to swim, to disassemble,
the hooks coming off left right and upfront.
as she brushes the velvety softness, slips back behind the drapes into black
and takes a bow.
