Free Girl in Profile by Zillah Bethell Page A

beneath her tiny, high-arched feet. Don’t go. Not yet. How evanescent and selfish youth is.
    â€œIn the female dragonfly,” Peter Pan pronounces from his wheelchair, “the maiden flight is always vertical. Then subject to the prevailing wind.”
    The wind. A slovenly old bag who farts beneath her party frock, whips a wig off her own head to reveal a bald moon staring down on a grim and grimy sea. Old cuttlefish, cola bottles, seagull smears. The rain pisses down from the pot-bellied weak-bladdered old men, and I wonder if the monks on Caldey Island ever eat their own ice cream. If, during a vow of silence, any of them ever scream. Or do they kneel for eternity in a row of tornado hearts, like artichoke plants.

Gwen
    Sex and Sinkholes
    He fades me like the sun. If I gaze too long upon him. I wriggle from beneath the thickened waist, step carefully over Edgar, who immediately jumps into my warm soiled space. Just like Dorelia. Warm the brown teapot, wipe the William Morris cup he admires, prepare some chestnuts in milk for his digestion. It scares me, sometimes, to think how old he is. He props himself up on a loose-tissued arm, watches me work.
    â€œYou are form in air, like a statue. You have no bad sides or angles. You are magnificent.”
    â€œThank you.” I pull on my white tunic nonetheless.
    â€œYou have made preparations.” He indicates the canvases, the pictures of Fenella. “You have revealed the art of undressing. It is sad and sensual naturellement as all love is. It is an outburst.”
    I bring the chestnut milk, sit at the foot of the bed. “Directed at you,” I challenge him.
    He laughs, and I am suddenly angry that he is old, that Ida is dead, that my canvases remain unadorned, that I am so timorous of the world yet so desirous of its pleasures. “I’m the crumpled glove my master warms his thumb in when he chooses.”
    The lines on his forehead turn into calligraphy. “I came here to console you, comfort you in your grief.”
    â€œHow very noble.” I pull up my tunic, straddle the thickened waist. Edgar jumps down obligingly. Just like Ida.
    My body buckles, undulates, overheats, fills with sinkholes, air bubbles.
    â€œYour face is wetter than your minge,” he chides.
    â€œDoes it bother you?”
    â€œNot at all.”
    First he colours me, then he mottles, finally he bleaches.
    Opening the curtains wide, I suck him in, absorb him, inhale him, exhale him. Inhale him, exhale him.
    Even when he’s gone and my eyes are closed, he goes on burning my retinas.

Elizabeth
    Letter To Death Row
    Dear James,
    I’m Odette tonight. All feathers and glitter, and the shapes I make you wouldn’t believe. I spin, conduct the air, twist and plait the atmosphere. From a distance this life looks perfect like a set of veneered teeth, but don’t forget that underneath we’ve been pared down to fit. Pared down to the bone, the stump. We’re merely groundhoppers really. Close to, we cry, pant, thump. You’d be surprised how loud it is if you’re sitting in the pit. Our panda eyes as the greasepaint melts. Our stepladdered tights and ladybird pumps as our sinews strain, the toenails curl. Behind the ethereal being is a surprisingly muscular heart.

Gwen
    The Little Interior
    â€œHow can you love him?” L’Homme Femme demands, applying the calendula I brought for her scalded arm in fierce sharp dabs. “He’s pompous shit. Merde . He’s like a cathedral in awe of his own grandeur. Thinking his spire reaches up to heaven.”
    â€œWell,” I giggle. “That’s true. But in a hundred years’ time his work will be in every museum in the world, still covered in thumbprints. Philosophers will have a carte postale of The Thinker on their desks. Lovers will have one of The Kiss on their dressing tables.”
    â€œAnd what about your work?” She pours cardamom tea from a pot the