She's stopped in her tracks, her face
up, eyes and lips
tight, braced
for what? Applause? A slap, more like.
Or a kiss from a lusty Uncle?
Not in spite
but because of the ash-brittle lace
that frills her hips
she's irretrievably
exposed,
betwixt and between,
not quite
a child, her body not quite dragooned into grace,
her stocking puckered at one knee...
She's very old,
fourteen,
and cast in bronze.
Her plinth is wired. After we've gone
and the attendant snicks the lights out one
by one, a black box on the wall
considers her. It watches, all
night, as her mother might have done.