This year is the 250th anniversary of the death of JS Bach, marked at the Proms by a performance of the B Minor Mass on the anniversary itself. Bach has also been richly present in the Albert Hall through other composers' arrangements, orchestrations and variations. My poem is a small part part of a larger work, owing everything to the music of the Proms.

Shapcott's Variation on Schoenberg's orchestration of Bach's Prelude and Fugue in E flat major, St Anne (Prom 24)

Where does it come from this passion
for layers? I could eat the lexicon,
breathe whole fugues in German and Latin,
rub notes on my skin to make my pores sing.

Numbers make me tremble in Spring.
I want to counterpoint them until I careen
off the edge of the world disputing
with God himself about the number seven.