light-fingereddrums. People in medieval costumes whirled about. Muscular beggars were there, slender maidens in pointed caps with trailing veils, a stately prince, a voluptuous Gypsy, a witty fool. Everything you might require. Daydream ingredients. Takeout romance.
Then the lights dimmed and the music slowed, and the lepers entered. There were five of them; they held on to one another, to various parts of their various bodies, because they could not see. They were dressed in white strips of cloth wound round and round them, around their bodies and also around their hands and heads. They had no faces, only this blunt cloth.
They looked like animated mummies from an old horror film. They looked like living bedsheets. They looked like war casualties. They looked like cocoons. They looked like people you once knew very well, whose names you’ve forgotten. They looked like your own face in the steam-covered mirror after a bath, your own face temporarily nameless. They looked like aphasia. They looked like an ad for bandages. They looked like a bondage photo. They looked erotic. They looked obliterated. They looked like a sad early death.
The music they danced to was filled with the ringing of bells. In fact they carried little bells, little iron bells, or so I seem to remember. That was towarn people: stay away from the lepers. Or: stay away from the dance. Dancing can be dangerous.
What about their dance? There is very little I can tell you about that. One thing is certain: it was not a tap dance. Also: no pirouettes.
It was a dance of supplication, a numb dance, a dance of hopelessness and resignation. Also: a dance of continuation, a dance of going on despite everything, a stubborn dance. An awkward, hampered dance. A fluid, graceful dance. A clumsy, left-footed, infinitely skillful dance. A cynical and disgusted dance, a dance of worship, naive and joyful. A dance.
Ah lepers. If you can dance, even you, why not the rest of us?
GOOD
BONES
1.
You have good bones
, they used to say, and I paid no attention. What did I care about good bones, then? I was more concerned with what was covering them. I was more concerned with lust, and pimples. The bones were backdrop.
Now they are growing into their own, those bones. Flesh diminishes, giving way to bedrock. Structural principles. What you need is the right light, to blot out the wrinkles, the incidentals. The right shade, the right amount of sun, and see, out come the bones, the good bones, the bones come out like flowers.
2.
Them bones, them bones, them dry bones, them and their good connections; we sang them over once around the campfire, those gleeful strutters to the Word of the Lord, or to our own hands clapping. Behind each face, each lovely body in its plaid shirt, soft bum on hard granite, I could guess the Halloween skeleton, white and one-dimensional, a chalk bonehead drawn on a blackboard; a zombie, a brief
memento mori
, dragged out for burning, like a heretic, flanked by the torches of the incandescent marshmallows.
Our voices made short work of them, them bones. Tossed on the bonfire they flared up like butter, and went out and were dismissed.
You are my sunshine
, we sang, though not to them. We nestled closer, jellifying each other, some of us boneless.
So much for death. So much for death, at that time, there.
3.
This is the cemetery. The good bones are in here, the bad bones are out there, beyond the church wall, beyond the pale, unsanctified.
The bad bones behaved badly, perhaps because of bad blood, bad luck, bad childhoods. Anyway, they did not treat their bodies well. Walked them over cliff edges, jumped them off bell towers. Tried to fly. Broke things.
The good bones lie snug under their tidy monuments. They have been given brooches to wear, signet rings, poems carved on stone, marble urns, citations. Circlets of bright hair. They have been worthy and dutiful, they deserve it. That’s what it says here: the last word.
The bad bones have been
Then the lights dimmed and the music slowed, and the lepers entered. There were five of them; they held on to one another, to various parts of their various bodies, because they could not see. They were dressed in white strips of cloth wound round and round them, around their bodies and also around their hands and heads. They had no faces, only this blunt cloth.
They looked like animated mummies from an old horror film. They looked like living bedsheets. They looked like war casualties. They looked like cocoons. They looked like people you once knew very well, whose names you’ve forgotten. They looked like your own face in the steam-covered mirror after a bath, your own face temporarily nameless. They looked like aphasia. They looked like an ad for bandages. They looked like a bondage photo. They looked erotic. They looked obliterated. They looked like a sad early death.
The music they danced to was filled with the ringing of bells. In fact they carried little bells, little iron bells, or so I seem to remember. That was towarn people: stay away from the lepers. Or: stay away from the dance. Dancing can be dangerous.
What about their dance? There is very little I can tell you about that. One thing is certain: it was not a tap dance. Also: no pirouettes.
It was a dance of supplication, a numb dance, a dance of hopelessness and resignation. Also: a dance of continuation, a dance of going on despite everything, a stubborn dance. An awkward, hampered dance. A fluid, graceful dance. A clumsy, left-footed, infinitely skillful dance. A cynical and disgusted dance, a dance of worship, naive and joyful. A dance.
Ah lepers. If you can dance, even you, why not the rest of us?
GOOD
BONES
1.
You have good bones
, they used to say, and I paid no attention. What did I care about good bones, then? I was more concerned with what was covering them. I was more concerned with lust, and pimples. The bones were backdrop.
Now they are growing into their own, those bones. Flesh diminishes, giving way to bedrock. Structural principles. What you need is the right light, to blot out the wrinkles, the incidentals. The right shade, the right amount of sun, and see, out come the bones, the good bones, the bones come out like flowers.
2.
Them bones, them bones, them dry bones, them and their good connections; we sang them over once around the campfire, those gleeful strutters to the Word of the Lord, or to our own hands clapping. Behind each face, each lovely body in its plaid shirt, soft bum on hard granite, I could guess the Halloween skeleton, white and one-dimensional, a chalk bonehead drawn on a blackboard; a zombie, a brief
memento mori
, dragged out for burning, like a heretic, flanked by the torches of the incandescent marshmallows.
Our voices made short work of them, them bones. Tossed on the bonfire they flared up like butter, and went out and were dismissed.
You are my sunshine
, we sang, though not to them. We nestled closer, jellifying each other, some of us boneless.
So much for death. So much for death, at that time, there.
3.
This is the cemetery. The good bones are in here, the bad bones are out there, beyond the church wall, beyond the pale, unsanctified.
The bad bones behaved badly, perhaps because of bad blood, bad luck, bad childhoods. Anyway, they did not treat their bodies well. Walked them over cliff edges, jumped them off bell towers. Tried to fly. Broke things.
The good bones lie snug under their tidy monuments. They have been given brooches to wear, signet rings, poems carved on stone, marble urns, citations. Circlets of bright hair. They have been worthy and dutiful, they deserve it. That’s what it says here: the last word.
The bad bones have been
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