I see them emerge
from St John’s Wood underground:
the women of the bare feet,
the women of the crooked back,
the women of the shuffling step,
turbans huge as baskets
wrapped around their heads,
necks bent to the left as if listening
to the dreams of scuttling trains.
I follow them to their little room
just off Grove End Road.
They promise to tell one story
for each round of fabric
that is unwound from their heads.
And as they talk, all that they have carried
falls onto the floor:
painted tea-pots, silver thimbles and spoons,
wedding dresses, candlesticks,
waistcoats and blankets sewn by hand.
We sit on the floor and laugh.
They strip the night from my eye.
They tell the story of the king of the wind.
They voice the jewels of my own wonder.
I ask them where their land lies.
I ask them why their heads are weighted down.
I ask them what they yearn for.
One story for each round.
But every piece of fabric they remove
must wind around my own head
as each tale I hear becomes my own.
I hear of the lost land of Cremone
and wonder how a country can be lost.
Each woman tells a different tale:
the trees grew too tall and toppled down,
the borders stretched too thin and disappeared,
the people turned too proud and moved away.
I hear of a land that faded out of time.
I hear of a land now carried in the stories,
in the turbans, on the heads of these women.
One story for each round.
And when the night is through
I feel my own head
newly turbanned
filled with stories.
We are the women of the milky eye.
We are the women of the laughing teeth.
We are the women of the vanished land.
We are the last storytellers of Cremone.
