I Shed my Soul

by Nanette Rayman

I shed my soul down stage right,

my heart raised high, the audience applauds

in a frenzied surge fete. And they get the bare

soul ballet, the  battement petite beaten

to the hermetic cues to stay alive.

All I have left to do is to connect Cressida’s hurting

to my own with a velvet cord and open

myself breathless by the window-set mourn wood,

arduously attaching emotional muscle and my real face.

I am not Nina in The Seagull. I rather relate to Masha—

I am in mourning for my life. I find lost Psalms in the ornate

frontispieces. Aggrieved in the moment, my hair wild and free

in the radiance of stage lights reflected on the rosy pink curtains

and my eyes voracious for holy answers, my eyes

one more time pleading as Cressida in a rupture of fire by the window

pane—no one appeared to see. It vanished and appeared four times

the fire, one violin player struck a G-note below middle C.

It is not out of insolence that I ask for a better portion—

it is out of need. My need drapes my bones like

streamers of snow banks. My soul awakens in anxious adagio—

I’m grateful I am not homeless. I won’t wither and die

on the stage tonight. Theatre is a crash course in turning grateful.