Will Rawls is a writer and choreographer. In 2016 he co-curated the Danspace Project Platform: Lost and Found looking at the intergenerational, intersectional effects of HIV/AIDS on dancers. While in Los Angeles, he will be drafting a couple dance texts for publication and rehearsing a performance collaboration with Claudia Rankine and John Lucas. Huge thanks to Pieter for providing space and time to dance and write, but most of all to rest and be quiet.
IN HONOR OF BEING QUIET
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, by Eduardo C. Corral
I approach a harp
abandoned
in a harvested field.
A deer
leaps out of the brush
and follows me
in the rain, a scarlet
snake wound
in its dark antlers.
My fingers
curled around a shard
of glass—
it’s like holding the hand
of a child.
I’ll cut the harp strings
for my mandolin,
use the frame as a window
in a chapel
yet to be built. I’ll scrape
off its blue
lacquer, melt the flakes
down with
a candle and ladle
and paint
the inner curve
of my soup bowl.
The deer passes me.
I lower my head,
stick out my tongue
to taste
the honey smeared
on its hind leg.
In the field’s center,
I crouch near
a boulder engraved
with a number
and stare at a gazelle’s
blue ghost,
the rain falling through it.
Photo Credit: Three Figures by Lorna Simpson.