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Authors: Jeanette Winterson
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whetted them. That Time, the Destroyer, was a man, she had no doubt. She thought bravely about his indifferent scythe and that led her to think of Ruggiero, her own young blade, green as grass. Among the campion she would have him, chain him with daisies, prick him by the briar rose. She would roll him in buttercups until he was spread with her. There would be no clouds that day, and if the bells tolled, she would not heed them. She would be sweet in the meadow of her love.
Ruggiero was nervous. He had been sent a note from Doll Sneerpiece to meet her in her rooms in one hour. The clock struck. How could he go? He was a scholar. He gazed at his strong straight body in the glass. The clock struck again. It was true that he did not look like a scholar. He was neither hunched nor whiskered, he did not smell, he kept no noticeable stains upon his clothes. He had good eyesight and he was not ill-tempered. His nose and his ears were clean. No-one would have taken him for a scholar.
‘But women,’ he said, ‘Women are venom and rot. Women are the sweet painted screen around the night-soil trough. Women are the lure of passing flesh stretched over the everlasting carcass. Their end is food for worms. There is no sin that a woman does not know, no goodness that she knows of her own accord. She tempts me as a feed bucket tempts a hungry horse. She plagues me out of Egypt with locusts and honey. Her mouth is a wound. Her body is a sore.’
If the clock struck again, Ruggiero did not hear it, perhaps he was a scholar after all.
To carry white roses never red.
White rose of purity white rose of desire. Purity of desire long past coal-hot, not the blushing body, but the flush-white bone.
The bone flushed white through longing. The longing made pale by love. Love of flesh and love of the spirit in perilous communion at the altar-rail, the alter-rail, where all is changed and the bloody thorns become the platinum crown.
Crown me. You do. You weave the budding stems, incoherent, exuberant, into a circle of love. I am hooped with love. Love at my neck, love at my heels, love in a cool white band around my head. The bloody beads are pearls.
This love is neither wild nor free. You have trained it where it grows and shaped me to it. I am the rose pinned to the rock, the white rose against the rock, I am the petals double-borne, white points of love. I am the closed white hand that opens under the sun of you, that is fragrant in the scent of you, that bows beneath the knife and falls in summer drifts as you pass.
Cut me. You do. You cut me down in heavy trusses, profusion, exhaustion, and soak me in a stream of love. Love runs over me. Love at my breasts, love at my belly, my belly heaped with petals, a white hive of love. White honey at your hand.
Who calls whom? Do I call you my rose? Do you call it me? Do we call it the love that grafts us twice on one shoot? Muser and Muse. Out of those two, the mysterious third, two spirits, one word … (tertium non datum ). The Word not given but made. Born of a woman, Sappho 600 BC. The Rose-bearer and the Rose.
In the sea-green hall where the colour slapped against the walls in shallow wash, she held me against the rocks, she kissed me. Her mouth was full of little fishes that swam into mine. Little fishes between tongue and teeth, little flicks of sex.
There was salt on her hands, salt rubbed into the wounds of me, wounds of waiting, wounds of pain. Wounds in need of salve yet fearing it.
‘Kiss me,’ she said. I did. Kissed her mouth where the sea was, kissed her mouth where the ship was waiting, kissed her mouth on a flotilla of time, jumping, ship to ship, mouth to mouth, all the mouths kissed through time.
I knelt at the V of her stomach muscles lifted up, two hands in prayer. I sang the long praise of her belly. Her fingers coraled my hair. Love me Sophia, on the narrow band of white sand, that separates us from the sea.
In the dark places that do not need light, where light would
Ruggiero was nervous. He had been sent a note from Doll Sneerpiece to meet her in her rooms in one hour. The clock struck. How could he go? He was a scholar. He gazed at his strong straight body in the glass. The clock struck again. It was true that he did not look like a scholar. He was neither hunched nor whiskered, he did not smell, he kept no noticeable stains upon his clothes. He had good eyesight and he was not ill-tempered. His nose and his ears were clean. No-one would have taken him for a scholar.
‘But women,’ he said, ‘Women are venom and rot. Women are the sweet painted screen around the night-soil trough. Women are the lure of passing flesh stretched over the everlasting carcass. Their end is food for worms. There is no sin that a woman does not know, no goodness that she knows of her own accord. She tempts me as a feed bucket tempts a hungry horse. She plagues me out of Egypt with locusts and honey. Her mouth is a wound. Her body is a sore.’
If the clock struck again, Ruggiero did not hear it, perhaps he was a scholar after all.
To carry white roses never red.
White rose of purity white rose of desire. Purity of desire long past coal-hot, not the blushing body, but the flush-white bone.
The bone flushed white through longing. The longing made pale by love. Love of flesh and love of the spirit in perilous communion at the altar-rail, the alter-rail, where all is changed and the bloody thorns become the platinum crown.
Crown me. You do. You weave the budding stems, incoherent, exuberant, into a circle of love. I am hooped with love. Love at my neck, love at my heels, love in a cool white band around my head. The bloody beads are pearls.
This love is neither wild nor free. You have trained it where it grows and shaped me to it. I am the rose pinned to the rock, the white rose against the rock, I am the petals double-borne, white points of love. I am the closed white hand that opens under the sun of you, that is fragrant in the scent of you, that bows beneath the knife and falls in summer drifts as you pass.
Cut me. You do. You cut me down in heavy trusses, profusion, exhaustion, and soak me in a stream of love. Love runs over me. Love at my breasts, love at my belly, my belly heaped with petals, a white hive of love. White honey at your hand.
Who calls whom? Do I call you my rose? Do you call it me? Do we call it the love that grafts us twice on one shoot? Muser and Muse. Out of those two, the mysterious third, two spirits, one word … (tertium non datum ). The Word not given but made. Born of a woman, Sappho 600 BC. The Rose-bearer and the Rose.
In the sea-green hall where the colour slapped against the walls in shallow wash, she held me against the rocks, she kissed me. Her mouth was full of little fishes that swam into mine. Little fishes between tongue and teeth, little flicks of sex.
There was salt on her hands, salt rubbed into the wounds of me, wounds of waiting, wounds of pain. Wounds in need of salve yet fearing it.
‘Kiss me,’ she said. I did. Kissed her mouth where the sea was, kissed her mouth where the ship was waiting, kissed her mouth on a flotilla of time, jumping, ship to ship, mouth to mouth, all the mouths kissed through time.
I knelt at the V of her stomach muscles lifted up, two hands in prayer. I sang the long praise of her belly. Her fingers coraled my hair. Love me Sophia, on the narrow band of white sand, that separates us from the sea.
In the dark places that do not need light, where light would
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