A stocky black-whiskered man felt contempt for anything unusual. He pushed his sour face into Margery’s. “We’ll drown you in tears,” his lifeless voice more frightening than screams. Two handsome men offered to escort her to her inn but Margery couldn’t remember where it was, only that a German ran it. She wept so fiercely it was amazing that eyes survived or heart endured (heretic in flames).

11

The weather turned mushy, rosebuds rotted on the trellises. On June 23, Margery and John set off on a pilgrimage to Bridlington. They traveled through the Fens and then on a road through barley and rye fields cultivated for centuries. The grain was just coming into ear and the fields were dotted with vermilion poppies. Margery and John’s brown ponies stepped reluctantly in the mud and sometimes stopped, eyes rolling in distaste.

A farmer planting winter forage followed his plow; his pubic hair itched and his muddy hose hung over the side of his hoggers. His wife walked ahead with a long goad; she wore a clouted coat cut short to the knee. A loose flock of blackbirds pecked at the newly sown seeds. She shrugged and remarked to the ox that it looked like rain. The road was lined with boulders that resembled huge slabs of marbled meat.

•

Another mile and the road divided. The landscape is my longing materialized; there is no more world; the sentence that describes landscape, clothes, and food goes nowhere—it’s already aroused, a heaven where L. and I are making love. My lyricism is my tenderness for L.

•

On the corner stood a cottage next to a mountain of garbage; in the garden a girl scooped peat-black soil with a piece of slate. Her mother had been unable to satisfy a craving for oysters, so black oyster shells covered the child’s hands and feet. Flowers and birds shone with individual life and identification with their species, an elaborate and finicky charm. A rufous woodcock flew fast and the undulating hills stretched back into unusual depth.

The pilgrims stopped near a roofless hut circled by the stone wall of a garden run wild. Wrens warbled and a small flock of goldfinches pecked along the hedgerows and cried deedelit from a patch of thistles. John stooped on a slimy footstone to drink from a well covered by ferns. He had little control over his life but in bed his confidence was magisterial. When he was sixteen his body had made itself known in a rush of exhilaration. He took long walks, had continuous sex, masturbated; he peaked for days and barely slept.

Margery, the more powerful citizen, became abandoned and frenzied in sex. She carried a bottle of ale and John had a loaf tucked against his chest. John removed his riding huke and slung it over a branch. The somber buzzing insects made them aware of the silence.