Vitae
1649
René folds the wooden bones of his daughter
at wire hinges
she can be contracted to a third
head to hips
back to legs
he stows her carefully in the oak carved sea chest
locks it…
goes up on deck for an airing
it is a rough crossing
the visions return
I doubt, I breathe, I am
at the stern (cold white hands, too thin,
nails dug in to softening salted wood)
to steer
watching wide white wake
sailors pull trembling top-sheets
to a bawdy beat
men of animal instincts
(he thinks)
pleasure
pain
they know he is travelling with his daughter
no one has seen her
two bowls of bag-boiled beef strung from hollow bone
are left at their door daily
circling his thumb over the smooth wooden ducat
he will add to her stature:
five measurements
one for each year
they marked together
on the pantry door;
add his own height
and her mother’s - 4.11
out of her shoes
minus five
divide by two
he grows her
his daughter-machine is well oiled,
moves with a fluid lightness
he has befriended butchers
peeled back flesh airing
tapestries of red raw life
knows the mechanics of movement
intuitive artistry
simple in its complexity
pullies and contractions
the bellows of lung
internal circularity
he has formed her
as God had
in his own image.
she wears the bonnet
he has kept it
the rest:
memory
conjecture
a silent creature
all matter -
hydraulic springs
flesh (simulacrum of)
carved from fragrant spruce pine
uprooted fresh from the banks of the Rhine
he dreams of plucking butterfly wings
their fluttering vibrations in her throat
what good would sound be
with no words to say?
she used to sing
vitae
spark of life
wound to unwind
a secret he keeps
even from himself:
she has begun
to wind her own springs…
I doubt, I breathe, I am
seeing her
out of the chest
(double locked)
sewing
or
reading
the reading is the rub
imitative?
(she has seen him do it)
or inwrought
as the spaniel chases the pheasant
and pigeons fly home?
sometimes
they dance
he has taught her
or
she has learnt
the Bavarian waltz
they circle one and other
advance
retreat
she spins like a top
he is laughing
for a time
she exists
after
lying in bed
the dread:
if animal is mechanical
can man be reduced
to parts?
she is automaton, he says to himself again
rationally
and yet
there is the question of the freckle
why
had he painted on the freckle?
out, out again she is here
laying smooth leaf-dark hand
in his pale damp palm
he stares at the shared
branching fractals of their veins
sailors swift with superstition
collar her
bonnet slips from smooth wooden scalp
as they cast her out upon the waves
he wonders:
had they thought her real
enough
to cause such lashing briny storms?
the dress
(she stitched herself)
blooms
wilts
her expression does not change
he is sure she feels
no less and no more
than the cold-bodied fish shoaling
around her sinking form
René picks up her fallen bonnet
a little damp from the rain
tucks it into his breast pocket