Page 122 - Dark Matter Issue5 Part II

SYBIL: She used to talk in poetry. She said to me when she was three and a

half, "mama, where do the stars go in day? Do they go down under the earth to

dance with the dead bones." When she was just two, she asked: "Mama, why

doesn't light always come colored like in rainbows?" I wrote the things she said

down in my head. They were going to take her away from me. They were going

to take her away. Because I watched him one night from the door, when he hurt

her. I watched. My tongue turned to ash in my mouth.

ADMIRA: I wanted to kill them all. I want to go back and I want to kill. I want to kill

everyone who looked at me. Everyone who watched. Everyone who knows

anything. Rachel knows too much. Some nights I want to take a knife. I want to

cut out her heart. So she'll know. So she'll know what it felt like.

Sybil, whose daughter was wounded by an abusive father but who died at her

own hand is the only one who knows in her own flesh enough of sorrow to hear

Admira’s rape story without recoiling. At the end of their call and response in the

forest, after they each have unburdened themselves, Sybil speaks of the comfort

she has found.

SYBIL: That’s how I learned to keep bees. Dora bought me a hive. Dora was

always very good to me. I found out that bees live the same way in captivity or in

the wild. No one has ever been able to change the essence of bees. All we have

ever been able to do is steal their honey, but the bees go on being bees just the

same as always. They live as if they were free. They talk to each other with their

wings. They make up dances. In times long ago, people used to understand the

language of bees but now we've forgotten how to understand them

It is the poet, Robert, who does most of the childcare throughout the play, having,

surprisingly, fallen “in love with this baby.” Like many men as they age, Robert

has become open to the experiences of nurturing the young he was simply too

4