Antony Nicholls
Women's Theatre
For two weeks, leeches under bell jars
until a bell’s rung. Escorted to theatre,
limping up steps, I leant on one long
handrail. Before me, walls sloped over
mayhem. The only girl in that garret.
Below its boards, old St Thomas’s nave,
Tall rows of students eyed my calves.
After midday, it was so bloody, the more
I tottered, the more youths did laugh.
I scorned the blindfold of white cotton.
Boots stamped till a surgeon was sighted.
God was kind, sent bloodshot Robert Liston.
Silence. His grocer’s bib clean. Handlers
gripped my taut shoulders and ankles.
I lay back, blind-drunk on seven pints.
A surly brute - the fastest surgeon
and sweaty after previous exertions -
Robert stood with a knife at the ready.
‘Time me gentlemen, please!’
Students unclasped their fob-watches.
Should I speak of what passed between us?
Agony or ecstasy? Here, I’ve the legacy -
sliced below my kneejoint. I saw him
flay me, peel my skin to flap that stump.
I twisted my eyes, screeching, and spat
at the blade bitten by yellow teeth,
his head ducked, then - saws, such
ruthless fierce strokes - three, four,
away. Men floated up. Afraid to faint,
I wrenched free and his haste became
my survival. I wound my own tourniquet.
Applause. God’s burning in church skylight.
Thudding cries of ‘Heads, heads, heads’.
A bloodbox kicked against one table leg
and those boys keen, their ardent pressing.
Page(s) 14-15
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