The Art of Taxidermy
Page 9
We all died, again,
when Mother died.
Death haunted us all
in our own ways.
Annie had said: It is only death.
It is not the end!
The dead are gone—
not forgotten.
We all die.
It’s a part of life.
MOSAIC MEMORIES
After our talk
I thought about
my memories of Mother,
those strange fragments
that haunted
and confused.
But now
with Father’s words
those memories
seemed less disjointed
more whole, like
mosaic tiles.
HUNTING I
Jeffrey was a good friend,
a good distraction,
who kept my mind from wandering
to Annie and Mother.
We met after school,
went hunting.
He was a good tracker.
He could find
all sorts of things
to which my eyes and ears
were blind.
We found birds and lizards
and berries and grubs.
He pointed to the tracks
of kangaroos and echidnas
in the scrub.
I took photos of birds
and mammals and reptiles, and
of Jeffrey’s beautiful smile.
HUNTING II
One day we crouched
watching a mob of kangaroos.
So rare to see them
so close to the suburbs.
So rare for us
to be so close.
When I turned to speak
I saw Jeffrey’s long-lashed
chocolate eyes and his wide smile.
I reached out, touched his hand,
leaned in,
and we fell into
a soft, slow kiss.
JEWELS I
The first storm after the summer
drenched.
The wide cracks in the earth
drank the cool clear rainwater.
Jeffery and I were out walking
the paddocks that skirt the town
when thunder clouds rolled in
and forks of lightning split the sky.
We sheltered under an ancient gum
by the creek, and listened
to the trickle of water, to the rain and
thunder and shriek of birds.
Jeffrey carefully lifted some bark
and uncovered a tiny skeleton,
curled in a foetal position
clinging to its long slender tail.
Is it a mouse? I asked.
He shook his head. Baby possum.
The beautiful precision—
complete, not one piece missing.
Its tiny bones: the fragile ribs,
long-fingered hands and toes.
Its mouth, slightly ajar,
with tiny teeth.
It was as beautiful as a jewel,
as beautiful as Jeffrey’s eyes.
It reminded me of the dying
possum near Oma’s farm.
JEWELS II
It rained for a week,
keeping me inside watching
the rain-streaked windows
and the garden changing colour
from a weary grey
to a bright green.
The glory vine glowed
with iridescence—
yellows, oranges and deep reds.
I had time to sift and
sort my photos.
To study their composition,
the nuances of tone
and subject—
the newly dead,
the decomposing,
the skeletal.
PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE II
Aunt Hilda was not pleased.
I could hear her voice
through the thick walls.
I opened the bedroom door,
listened to her and Father
through the crack.
She is wearing the fox to school.
She is drawing pictures of the dead.
She is taking photographs of death.
Her workbooks are full of pictures
of tombstones and graveyards.
She is writing poems about dying.
Her teachers are concerned.
Wolfgang, this is not healthy!
This is serious!
Her room has that smell again.
The smell of death and decay.
Wolfgang, she is not well.
When will you see?
You must stop this.
I crept up the hall, avoiding
the creaky floorboard, peeked through
the gap in the sliding door.
Father flicked through
my treasured photographs,
his frown deep.
What shall we do, Wolfgang?
Confiscate the camera?
REBELLION
I burst in, roared:
You will not take my camera!
You are not my mother!
Lottie! That is enough,
Father’s voice boomed.
Show some respect!
After all your aunt has done
for you, for us!
Young Lady, out now!
Go to your room.
BAD DREAMS
My eyes were gritty
from tears and anger.
My body heavy
with the dead weight of grief.
For hours Aunt Hilda and Father
talked and talked.
Their words indecipherable
through the walls.
I hovered over sleep,
drifting, finally,
into bad dreams.
BONES AND BEAKS AND FEATHERS
Before leaving for school
I gathered
the other photographs—
the ones Father developed,
the ones Aunt Hilda had not seen—
that I’d kept
in my bedside drawer.
I took the fragile skeleton
of the baby possum,
the skulls of birds,
the flight and tail feathers
of brown hawks
and parrots and lorikeets
and the decaying paw
of the kangaroo.
I carried them to the shed,
hid them
in Father’s cupboard,
away from Aunt Hilda’s
prying eyes.
BREAKFAST
At breakfast Aunt Hilda sat opposite
and said in a quiet, calm voice:
Your Father and I talked.
He said he is going to fix this.
He told me he will end it
once and for all.
She reached out,
touched my hand.
Lottie, my dear,
I know you think I am harsh
but I just want to be a good aunt.
I want what is best for you.
One day you will see.
All day at school
Aunt Hilda’s words
reverberated
along with Annie’s:
It’s only death.
It’s not the end.
We all die.
They pinged through my head,
an unwanted refrain.
I looked for Annie, but
she was nowhere.
CARTWHEELS II
A bank of grey clouds
skimmed the chalky-blue sky.
The sun was soft, the wind, sharp,
cutting through my thin T-shirt.
Russet-coloured leaf litter
skittered and somersaulted
and a claw-shaped leaf
cartwheeled in front of me.
The ground was dry again
>
and cracked from the summer heat.
Brittle leaves, twigs and bark
crunched under my feet.
Up ahead a small group of magpies
speared the ground.
They are not a small group,
Annie’s voice sang in my head.
They are a tittering, a tiding, a char,
a congregation, or a murder.
Their warbling song normally
filled me with cheer,
but today it was a song of sadness,
a mourning song.
THE BROKEN, THE BATTERED, THE DEAD
After school I went to my room,
shut the door, lay on my bed.
But the door flew open.
I found your ghoulish stash
hidden in the shed. The box full of
the broken, the battered, the dead.
Where are they?
What have you done?
Tears were already falling.
They are confiscated.
I have done you a favour.
It is time to move on.
Your father agrees.
Aunt Hilda shut the door firmly.
I rolled on my side,
curled into foetal position
like the precious baby possum.
FOETAL
I did not move,
I would not eat,
I could not move,
I could not eat.
Aunt Hilda and Father’s voices
rose and fell in a distant place.
Their faces, their brows
crinkled with concern,
hovered above,
drifted in and out of focus.
I wanted my baby possum.
I wanted my beautiful
taxidermied bird.
I wanted my creatures,
I wanted my treasures,
I wanted my mother.
I wanted my Annie.
ANNIE III
She came in a dream,
curled her
beautiful white body
around me.
Her sunshiny hair
tickled my cheek.
We lay together
for a long time—
and then she said:
All will be well,
you will see.
Tomorrow, rise early.
Talk to Father.
Tell him
how you feel.
SUNRISE
I walked down the hall
to Father’s room,
sat on the end of his bed.
He woke with surprise.
Lottie. Are you all right?
Yes, Father.
I need to tell you that I am not
what you and Aunt Hilda think I am.
I do not go around killing.
I would never do that.
I love animals. I would never harm them.
It is not macabre or ghoulish
to hold on, to resurrect,
to re-imagine, to re-create.
It is a way of honouring beauty.
It is a way to hold onto life.
I am a girl, but I am not
Aunt Hilda’s girl,
and I am not like her.
Father reached out
and tucked a strand of hair
behind my ear,
just like Mother or Oma
would have done.
Lottie, your aunt loves you.
She is worried and
she means well.
She wants what is best
for you.
We both do.
RETURNING TO THE WORLD
I returned to the world,
reinhabited my body,
to a degree.
It felt unfamiliar,
as if it had grown
since my retreat,
my inward turn.
The long walk to school
felt miraculous,
the world appeared hyperreal,
the colours brighter,
the sky higher,
the trees, the grass, the leaves
sharp-edged,
more defined.
And I had a sense
of drifting above myself
just out of reach.
COLD GREY STREETS
Jeffrey smiled his slow smile
from across the quadrangle
and sauntered towards me.
He did not ask where I had been.
We just fell into step,
walked to class.
All day I drifted in and out
of my body,
watched myself from afar.
Every now and then
thoughts of my spoiled treasures
slipped into my mind.
Heaviness descended,
filling my legs with lead,
my eyes with salty tears.
On the way home I dragged
my weary feet
along cold grey streets
under a thick blanket of cloud.
I meandered across paddocks,
under canopies of trees,
crunching over deep layers
of mouldering leaves,
trying to conjure Annie
trying to re-enter
that long-ago dream.
ANSWERS
And then, as if in reply,
the sun burst through
a glorious hole in the clouds
sending shafts of light
onto a bony-shape
beneath the leafy litter
at my feet.
I bent down, uncovered
smooth white bone
and the delicate skull
of a small cat.
Six tiny incisors,
two perfectly sharpened eye teeth,
maxilla and molars—
all pristine,
glinting in the sudden sunshine.
A fissure from the nose cavity
to the base of the skull
divided the hemispheres
left and right—
right and wrong?
It revived me,
this bony message—
this feline find.
Such perfect precision,
so light, so white,
so wild, so right.
There it was,
out of nowhere
into my hands,
as if it contained the answer
to everything.
RECONSTRUCTING
I combed through leaves
and damp soil
uncovering bone after bone:
clavicle, scapula,
vertebra, pelvis,
fibula, femur,
metatarsal,
phalange.
I imagined myself
in an ancient land,
sifting through soil and sand
on an archaeological dig.
Each bony find brought pleasure,
a tingling delight, and
as I reconstructed
this treasure, this gift,
these skeletal remains,
I felt my own bones lighten.
BONES
I hid away in my room,
made a shoebox nest
for my new treasures,
but not for the skull.
I wanted it on display,
upfront, central,
its presence alive,
powerful.
I put the skull
on my bedside chest
like an ancient talisman
to bring me luck
and keep me buoyant.
It filled the air with the energy
of ancient Egypt
and the cat goddess, Bastet.
In those delicate
bones and teeth
were the elements
and minerals
of stars and stardust
and all of the people
I ever loved.
STIL
L LIFE WITH SKULL
I heard Aunt Hilda’s voice
hazy and distant
calling me to dinner.
But it barely penetrated
my focus,
enthralled as I was
with my feline treasure.
Under the yellow light
of my bedside lamp
the cat skull glowed warmly,
painterly,
as if a master artist
had created it
stroke by oily stroke.
I gathered a few objects:
a book, a scarf, a speckled egg,
placed them with the skull—
artfully arranged.
I examined my still life
through the lens of my camera,
opened the aperture wide,
set a long exposure,
focused, steadied and,
at the slow click of the shutter,
the bedroom door opened.
Aunt Hilda stood in the doorway,
eyes wide and white
at the sight of that skull
illuminated in golden light.
SILENCE II
Aunt Hilda said nothing
at dinner
to Father or me
about the skull.
We all sat quietly for a while,
till Father said:
It is good to have you back, Lottie.
We missed you at the table.
Didn’t we, Hilda?
Yes, Lottie. It is good
that you are feeling better.
We were worried.
And then we returned
to silence.
POWER
School was torturous—
a long, slow walk
through fog.
I missed Annie;
I could not cling
to Jeffrey all day.
I wandered through the hours
from class to class
mostly alone.
All week I wandered.
All week I wondered
when the skull would be removed.
But it stayed.
Each day there it was,
unmoved, untouched,
exuding its fierce power,
though my own power
eluded me.
FELINE
One day I arrived home
feeling low, bereft,
expecting the skull
to be confiscated, gone, forever lost.
I walked into the house,
down the gloomy hall
into my room to see
the skull, still there,
on the bedside chest
undisturbed.
Still radiating