Orpheus Revisited
By Roberta Lawson


The first memory I have of you is your feet. Bouncing groundlessly on the air bubbles outside the Hayward on Waterloo Bridge; back and back again.

Later, your arms wrapped around me, and my skirt was metallic gold-coloured and my skin was dark, dark, dark.

And your bouncing feet stamped out a song which said you are the sun. And you moved around me in circles, feet throbbing like a drum.

And I lost you over and over, in a dance in which I wasn’t losing you. You were simply becoming something else. Your friend’s arms were around me and he was wearing your face. And then he ate me with his smile, his shiny white gravestone teeth. The crowd was stamping its feet and shaking its hips to the samba. It closes us in, and pushes you into me, your ukulele ringing. Those teeth aren’t yours.

I follow your song on beaches, into the shanty town where we settle with my cousin who has a face that is not mine. The village children love your playing, it makes them multi-coloured. My body is warm with the scent of your smile.

I plait my hair and become a different person for you each day. At night-time, we take off our clothes and dance into each other. Between night and day we create a new night, the size of our tiny hut. Outside, the chickens and cicadas, the sound of your enchanted ukulele. I open my mouth to let the sun out. You take it into your own.

I follow the sounds of your ukulele wherever you go, helplessly dancing to its tune.

But in daytime, you are not yourself. I know you only by the sound of your ukulele. In daytime, I am my cousin; every girl with my hair, my face, my metallic golden dress becomes me. Our feet clatter to the scream of the samba; my ears ringing so I can hardly hear your ukulele. Faster, faster, harder. Something falls from my hand.

I run, screaming for your tune. I spin around endless men, hoping to find your smile. Each one stares glassy-eyed, with stolen teeth. I keep falling. The rings of dancers go in, out, tighter and tighter.

A girl stole my eyes when we were passing the sun in our night-time. I listen only for the sound of your ukulele.

On a cliff-top, there is nothing. I hear feet bouncing, bouncing.

The scent of your smile is at the bottom of the cliff, and your tune is blowing along the wind. I catch your scent though my eyes were stolen. You looked back at me and tumbled over.

A million papers mark your tumble, blowing endlessly about our stolen faces. Your friend is the desk clerk in a building where offices never end. He is not your friend at all.

I open my mouth wide for the sun, and my throat yawns, empty. Shutters fasten around my lips.

The only sound is papers blowing, propelled by a thousand mechanised fans.

You looked back for me, and your friend, the keeper, stole the sun from my ripe red mouth. You looked back for me on the screaming cliff and the girl with my hair stole our day.

They say—the people with the empty papers, the people who ate the dancers—that I’ll be born again, for half of every year to taste the sun.

They say your tune will lead me back above ground. I’ll search the bottom of every cliff for the taste of your smile.

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