Orlando

Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester

24 February 

Here are time’s whippet fingers

running on, lifting the boy
who lies beneath the bowing oak tree

casting rhymes;

he barely breathes

before she has him by the ankles,

twirling his stockings,

barely a breath or rosebud kiss

upon his lover’s cheek,

a rush of ice beneath his feet

as he sweeps down the frozen river

to the sea, before

the last few seconds of the century

usher him on, a woman now,

learning the artfulness

of her own body

and the tricks that time may yet

have up her sleeve,

tugging her bodice, pulling her up

and on, into a circle, spinning,

lamp-lit, and the stark realisation

of the present moment.

Orlando runs at the Manchester Royal Exchange until 22 March
http://www.royalexchange.co.uk/event.aspx?id=778