Sweeper’s Girl

SWEEPER’S GIRL

THREE FIGURES.  Emma, A YOUNG WOMAN WITH HAUNTED EYES.  The Red Man, face obscured by a huge mask.  The smoke, formless.  Emma stands.

I have to tell you something, something you will forget

He won’t let you remember, yet

He’s probably watching

He always sees

Even when I don’t recall; praying or forgetting, he sees it all

I’m howling on my knees

The Red Man stands.

I hear writing

Nails scratch on chalkboard

The folk that fault me

Don’t know how I loved that boy

Come

Come he would say in his gruff gray voice

And I did come

There was no shame in our touch

Swept away by the lingering night

never waking, the merest whisper of my name, I’d run to him

The smoke speaks in many voices, overlapping.

Chant, chant the wicked world, chant the wicked

I was two I wouldn’t care to eat

One knew the other, the other knew nothing

He my protector, I his muse

That relationship of equitable misuse From that same table

Now I have nothing Scent of meat, faintly rotting

No boat, serene on the water

No lap of waves

Mumbling prayers in the naves Clots my nostrils up like glue

Boil, roil and boil the stew, spew it, chew it

Fool, the fool, fly, fly fool, you knew it It wasn’t …

I’m not.

A brief silence.  Emma laughs.

Thanks for that.  My peaceful moment in the wreckage. I hear …

My brief moment.

Emma puts her head in her hands.

Oh, God, where are they? The wicked world.

They come from nowhere, beseeching Clots my nostrils up.

That squealing howling chorus, entreating come …

Come to life, come to madness, come to Hell with us, come Dance, the wicked

As once I came, as I once came Dance, Clot, Dance.

but then would not, to him.

Is this your vengeance, sweeper, father, teacher?

Because I could not listen anymore?

Because I did not seem to glisten, in your eyes, as pearls glisten?

The folk that fault, fault me. Wicked. The boy I don’t know. Fool. Scratch the boy. Stew. Scratch the boy. Spew.

Emma speaks calmly.

Stop.  Say one more thing and I’ll scream.  I will.

Sometimes they listen.

I have to go to bed, I have to rest

my head, and neck, and shoulders ache with the pain of a thousand lifetimes.

I have to sleep among the flotsam and detritus

because I would no longer come as he wanted me to.  Wicked.

Come to me he’d say. Clot, boy.

Dance with me, girl. Boil.

Scream me to sleep, girl. Nails, meat.

All, in harmony for a brief moment.

I have to tell you.

THE END