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.