heartbroken, the wildering girls had huddled in the house. yet life is in the wilderness which is in her head outside the house and beyond the town and far, far away from the play room and the tame modern mouth. their mouths are red, their lies real. three wildering girls, bewildered by the slender trees, scribbled brush and bold sky. the narrow between, betwixt here and there they spy their eyes looking back into themselves. the body is a temple around their loveliness. they laugh, catch their breaths and toss that aside, back inside, for their bodies are not temples, being not built, these wild things with feral lashing tongues and lush tropical bellies and flying saucer eyes. that's not holy, aurora says we're evaporating! their bodies are forests and constellations and operas. how vulgar! they say and we are exasperating! they live in the trees, so that they are trees, and their bodies are great infantries of redwood. the wildering girls, they will not dream of the house any longer, for they have forgotten everything about architecture they never knew; to them trees are melodies, and the sounds become words, and words are fragrant. the boy sees how they dance, slick with seduction, enviously! no matter, they say, boy, you were one hell of a girlover and above all essentially strange. go back to your house with its red walls and black roof. this is the modern ballet, and we are hurricanes, starlight drips from our ankles, and we do not know what it is to live inside that is not inside ourselves. we are trees, and words, and sound, our bodies are universes and our limbs electricity. the boy said said, let there be light. the wildering girls spoke, i create, i want to write this down now, and i will not wait for you, for your love, for the moon to wax or the tides to turn. the girls turned on the lamp (give her a glow) they're a little bit nervous but their sweat doesn't show. veronique said i know and the boy said, but wait, wilderings smile, oh smile (isn't that wicked?) and the wilderings said, off with his head.

    aurora lifted her skirt, displaying the neat whiteness of her thighs. to seduce is also to destroy in greek: phtheírein. but it depends on how you're sexed: women bewitch and men kill or slay. what have you done? veronique said. he turned to run and linette said there's no real world to go back to. there's nothing you can do. they were kind, they were solemn. he had a guilty conscience, their lips bloomed blood roses on his flesh, blue bruises. nothing could move them. they rubbed his image from their eyes and he disappeared like a parlour trick, their teacups rattled in the saucers, aurora drew in her breath. she was alone. an empty room, her hands limp at her sides. alone, she waited, no longer lonely or vindictive; they all waited and the world held still. they waited for one another beyond the dream.