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Miss Heath
by Helen Mort
Miss Heath - Helen Mort
Miss Heath
At seventy, our dance mistress
could still perform
a perfect pas des chats.
Her French was wasted
in the north. We stood in line
repeating parr-durr-shat
or sniggered
as she waited in the wings,
her right hand beating time
against her hip, her eyes
avoiding ours. She never
made the stage.
It took me twenty years
to understand. Alone tonight
and far from home
in shoes that pinch my toes
until they bleed, my back
held ballerina straight,
I wait as she did, too afraid
to walk into a bar
where everyone’s a stranger,
see her glide
across the city night
to meet me, tall and white
and slim. A step behind,
she clicks her fingers. Elegant,
she counts me in.
from Division Street (Chatto & Windus, 2013), © Helen Mort 2013, used by permission of the author.