Читать книгу Monica's Overcoat of Flesh - Geraldine Clarkson - Страница 12

She goes up each day to the tip of the tower and looks out

for Truth—ham-fisted intruder that he is, copper-buttoned,

careening through scratchy cornfields, slowing

at violet patches of heather, bee-sprung

and violent. He would shun her at first, shear her

to her underwear, that was clear. She had to make a

mental dance not to mind—not to quease at—

his undoubted clumsiness, upturning her routine,

maladroit for a season. Autumn is best—moist decay

twisting through brakes, summer tweeting its guts out.

Hildebilde, come hither, she calls her man-maid:

look, see, the horizon’s a prim rose drawing us in

to an adult colouring challenge. Amalgamate

to speculate. Seven varieties of untruth dwell in the castle,

subfunctional. The untruth dwells in hands, chins, cloaks,

misty cupboards, and on the breakfast bar. How is it

that the King, for all his corpulent confidence, cannot

curtail it and daily offers his daughter’s feigning hand

to good upright men, but few come, and when they do,

they turn ungood, subvert into their worst-version selves,

flannelled over in grey, with monkey motifs, clean

out of linen and riddling words. Manflux. Individuaries.

The Queen has the get-going-grey of a graceful elder whose

earnest purpose is to please, to turn the mirror otherwise

and away, casting her beholders in various grave but

gilding lights. Images lovely and undone. The hoolie hall

holds hallelujahs and woolly tunes for melodising

in the evening, when curtains are pulled, and rugs adjusted

to be safe from sparks. Who’ll do for you,

one of the soft men intones. The smells are trickery

twice round the block and into your nose with a

whisper and half a quart of cologne, piquant.

Back for a time and sunning itself in the old garden

like a pregnant baby blackbird, the grass hot and sappy,

Truth is touched. Only thee and me untouched!—

the Queen murmurs to a newcomer, lately come,

come long since. Her voice turns to a whisper:

Though I cannot completely vouch for thee...