Bramah and the Beggar Boy
Page 13
She knew to trace ghost presences, the man
known as scholar, his name whispered,
mentioned in letters, traded in secret.
Bartholomew the Good, some called him.
Others, unsure, looked sideways, muttered, Informer.
Outside at Rue Monge, Av. des Gobelins
the market at Rue Mouffetard
Jardin des Plantes, she trailed sandy paths,
for hours she stood, the old Metro at
Censier–Daubenton
Square Adanson, too.
In Montmartre, outside Sacré-Coeur, she heard
that old brown Aunty, crippled limbs tucked neat
against marble steps, arms outstretched, begging
by the thinnest finger, a golden key.
Come, Bramah, sang this Aunty, rescue me.
Above them both on a bronze horse, St. Joan.
Abigail in Ahmedabad
She was always eager to please, they said.
A great failing, they all agreed.
Abigail persuaded to help women
They’d come on early and wanted to end—
A great crime, you’ll be punished, they told her.
She helped them anyway, without knowing
the nature of penalties, exacted.
Only beggar children to tell her,
keep searching, you’ll find the way.
Find our old Aunty, she’ll give you a clue.
This way, Abby-ji, for your Bartholomew!
Outside, northwest to the Baradari Gate—
A group of youths chant:
Her teeth were blackened
Her skull were cracked
Yet still she danced
The Mummer’s Dance
No smell nor taste
Let Fly, let waste
Outside the gate, crouched low, an old Aunty
Deekrah, she whispers, taking Abigail’s palm,
fingers tracing the letter B, electric.
(Translated from the Gujarati by Anonymous.)
Abigail in Baghdad
We said, under duress, We might have seen.
They said, Find us the Green Zone, and agreed.
We requested the necessary tools.
They would later deny this and searched us.
We maintained our innocence, despite harm.
In the end all we could point to: spray-painted
lettering, red dye, source unknown, those walls:
six strands, coal-black hair, a threaded needle.
Around a golden key, locket missing.
And said to be engraved also with these:
The Encounter
She was to meet him as the sun descended,
falling
at Down Time, they in the grove,
accessible in those days.
He arranged to meet again,
far from Detention Centre C.
They were intent on plants, on gardens,
meeting was about the Sun: zenith,
when not anyone stirred,
dust in crevices. Marble.
Meeting was about the Sun:
at dawn, the rays touching skin. An Alba.
Meeting was about the Sun:
absence at dusk.
Ragas to sweeten salt, the great longing
a sutra.
And so in this way Abigail the Wanderer
bartered, traded, stored, smuggled seeds.
Point of contact
the man they called the Good.
Unsure, she just called him Bartholomew,
same as heard from mouths of Beggar Boys.
Called by the Summer Solstice
Legend would say, in the years evermore
it were Aunty Agatha, sent word for Abigail’s return,
pocket to Ferrier, train ride to sleeve
every note found, sent on each New Year’s Eve.
What would she find there, at the Wishing Well,
an old oak box, a black leather notebook,
cream pages, a straight-handed script:
Alas, by the time she arrived, summer—
no sign of the old oak box, just hearsay.
Passengers on the last ferry, past barges
out to the Island once were called Barnston.
Survivors ragged and few, news travelling slow.
Abigail, without expression, listened:
No trace whatsoever of that locksmith.
Abigail, her smile suppressed, looked away:
The thing is, does she actually exist?
Abigail, her eyes downcast, her head, bowed:
Some say her name is Bramah.
Some say she knows a magic spell.
Abigail Returns to the Farm
فيرِعَلْا ةنَجَّ
And brought back from her travels, exquisite
fabrics: silk damask, dupioni gold——
each one inscribed in Arabic as of old.
Come my aunties, weave, stitch new masks for me.
I’ve come from afar; I’ve crossed all the seas.
There were other inscriptions and portents.
Children begged Abigail, Show us your cloths!
Some said these were unlucky to open.
Come my aunties, put away your seam rippers.
This Abigail would say with a slant-smile.
At the Wishing Well, no one there to tell,
past midnight, Abigail, hair tied back, stood
six oaks encircled, acorn in one hand,
closed fist; traced by the other, the letter,
Informers Sent by Consortium
From outside Rentalsman, by the Ferry,
ragged winnower, who tore out her own tooth.
It were a time of endless announcements;
loudspeakers, no rain, a certainty.
Consortium monitored all entries, exits.
Surveillance drones, contracted satellites.
Wind whittling tiny particulates,
rows of septic-green, soldiers’ helmets shone,
drill marching sergeants, troops bivouacked.
Soldiers signed up to billet at the farm.
Humped rows on city streets, tanks to crunch over
gutters oozing waste where food harvesters gathered.
Aunty Agatha and Abigail paid
piecemeal as washerwomen, harvesters.
By Ordinance, and only a number of ————
Evening Memories
We are in the farmhouse now,
writes Abigail by candlelight.
Then she writes this a hundred times:
Before Is Also a Place.
Her handwriting slopes right,
Aunty Agatha asleep by the fire.
Outside the long summer night glows azure.
Abigail watches her pen stroke the page
she smiles at them both, stolen contraband.
Then she writes this, once, then she rips the page:
I am in the kitchen, seeing instead
the gaze of that man they call Bartholomew
how when he looked at me
Well, never mind, Abigail says, smiling.
Around her the air in the kitchen, waits.
Abigail tosses her page into the fire.
The house rests.
Around the Circle Called You Could Have…
met, kissed, called, written, held, paid, given
and then you turned your back to the river
necessary fictions you told yourself.
Everywhere the signs: no one need know your
I love the way you saw in me something
Those marble floors, polished leg on leg, hands<
br />
You twisted your hips to fit that circle
I was, and you and we together cried
Cedar-scented musk at the nape of my——
Imprinted, injected, a bee, outlined
The depths of your voice that morning asking
Inside that room, inside Rentalsman, you
Your eyes, your height, your hair, always, your hands
Traced, stroked, pressed, brushed. Blackbird rising—
Abigail Gets Work as a Day Labourer
That summer of ’75, fierce drought.
Abigail digs the earth, at the soldiers’ parade.
Abigail pretends, kerchief tied to forehead,
ahead a group of farm brigades,
women who sing out to her, smiling,
their bodies a shield,
Because I love
to hear you call
my Indian name.
Their voices, cover for Abigail, digging
hidden from view, her hands cradle a phone
cracked screen, old android, scratched with a sign,
Later, at sundown, those Guards of the Gate
against all orders, they can’t help themselves.
It’s the way she moves, the toss of her head
in her hands a ration card, cables—
Abigail and the Android
From her fingers a love option, slipped drink.
That Guard of the Fifth, sprawled out, mouth open.
Abigail deft, click, insert, old hub plugged.
Wires and mainframe, Big E ration on.
Head bent to the glow of a cracked screen, she
knew by instinct how to tap, pinch, scroll down.
These are the pictures, cached files swiped open:
Always, we are bent toward my chalice
glass slides scratched, microbes shimmering, then gone.
Silence is a rhythm, hands, fingers teach
thumbs swipe, scroll up, I can barely recall
Here, this photo, and this one: his face, still——
He works quick, kneels, large hands on newsprint
clippings, thirty years’ worth of data gone
I dare not speak the names
Abigail’s breath, ragged and fast, she knows
this voice! Her own adopted mother, chained
to a small prison cell, face to camera.
The Lost Holograms of Dr. A.E. Anderson
Hologram #1: The Summons
Here to protect me, expanse of nation
The wild deep Atlantic way where ships once—
Estuary to river, a castle:
Bloodshed, famine, disease, those years always
Fixed distance, 2020 my birth year
And you, branded by another date, kinship
by design, not blood, was it chance or fate
Mercy knows a rock, shield, wrecks frozen,
a bay of water so wide
Coast mountains, carved cup flowering tundra
These to keep us apart, you’d be surprised
One-sided treasure, chamber of forever
Here, I am giving you, unasked, unsought
these messages from the past to guide you
Abigail, take heed, their powers are vast.
Hologram #2: Heeding the Call
Dr. A.E. Anderson, lab coat tattered
her furrowed brow, soft-strong voice vibrating—
To make the soap
To find the vials
To watch the glass
To dig the pits
To sew the masks
To find the chalice
And did Abigail turn her head away,
stolen Big E ration card, pocket jammed?
She did. Her sigh a harsh rasp, throat dry, lips
pursed, pressed, behind them the words, Ma, I can’t.
And did she then rise, peering round the door
that Guard of the Fifth Gate, drugged, his eyes closed?
Abigail in the House of the Makers
In the House of Clay and Lime
They will ask me how I got here: thrown down
a portal vortex—commandeered into work,
in chains they brought me: this courtyard of stone.
Masked, we slaked quicklime. My eyes uncovered
head turned away—that dust, combustion
caustic—layers mixed with clay, to line floors
bonded brick to stone, walls, rendered, plastered.
None to know what I have seen, a future of steel.
Here, they called the clay brickearth, heavy
this pit lined with stones, charcoal layers, lime
kiln, to bake the ashes, that fine white powder
soon, what everyone would be after—soap—
Alkaline to wash, to cure, to make pastes
to burn that caustic soda, pH 13.
Sent to search hard woods: ash, beech, sugar maple
gathered, dried, stored, cut, stacked, those burnt cinders,
wood ash layered into a wood barrel.
First stones, pebbles, then the sweetest straw husks
to wait for the spring rains, ash soaked through,
all the while to barter, beg, steal glass jars
the ash white, eyes covered, hands gloved, hard boots
careful to bend, those chicken feathers dissolved
or a potato to float to know done!
All the things before that, stepped series, calm mind—
pouring rainwater over ash: careful!
Liquid soap to clean, to cure, a heart’s full.
That tidal river, those barges and kilns
Grandmothers trekking close to river’s edge
seated under a new moon, hands to sticks
to stir, sweep, brush, pour, flecks of charcoal, clay:
lime kilns fired red-hot; rough rags covered
story to task, handed down, that vast plain
where a thousand animals roamed, huge birds
lions, tigers, antelope, grasses rustling——
how they’d laugh, coughing, kneading soap paste bars
when the towers turn pink, sun’s last Spring rays,
find the last glass traders: cardboard, plastic
bring us containers: ashes to our lips
once we were all together, our land joined
we can’t go back though; we can’t toss a coin—
In the House of the Glass Blowers
They brought before me: bowls, bottles, lamps
sand ground with seashells, hardwood ash, soda.
Before sunrise, their hands to fire kilns,
Silica lime soda, they whispered, True
copper measured drop by drop, Green, ruby
practise, they whispered, and bade me sit still
polish and grind, the years, without windows
transparent or flat enough, they then stained
story contained by lead, polish and grind
the years, until they made the bellows, hinged
container to draw in breath: expel, stoke
in and out, their fires burning white-hot.
Master of the Bellows, they’d shout and laugh:
Blow your Mould molten, fibre optics small
they made glass telescope even the stars!
They showed me obsidian cord cutters.
They showed me beads and the smallest vessels.
After midnight, surrounded by candles,
they held trembling the Sign of a Pharaoh:
They whispered Egypt to Rome, blow and mould.
They poured glazes; hot lava hardened.
They asked and I brought them, these instructions:
Millefiori, a thousand shallow vials
shaped core, overlaid colours, outer mould
pieces fused, oven baked, then ground so smooth.
They brought me to the Blowers, blindfolded.
Hours later, undraped, I could see lips
pursed over iron, mouthpiece to a knob
holding soft shapes, loaded, rolled, that hard place.
Our Marver, they called it, their tongs to lift
clip, nip, sculpt: their iron rods called Pontil.
Masked, they laughed: We’re for hire! and asked me:
That Bramah Girl, you see her work our forge——
In the Weavers’ Guild Hall
They showed me branches and twigs interlaced
warp up, weft across, their tongues clicking fast
their fingers even faster, their feet pedalling thread
twist us twine, smooth and stretch cotton, tie knots
warp up, weft across, their fingers on fire
stretch and twist before you kiss, they laughed clicking
their teeth to pull, break canvas, silk and wool
knot and lace, learn with grace: here, pull this now
batten to stuff our quilts, cross-stitch, and frame.
Our hands better than any fly shuttle
they scolded my errant fingers, clicking:
weft thread into the warp, pay attention!
Banish bobbins, forget all those machines.