I'm going to stay in this cradle for a little while.
I think it's the surroundings.
[LAUGHTER]
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
The ultimate dance, is, I think, the Dance
of the Seven Veils, Salome's Dance Of the Seven Veils.
And when I was a kid, and whenever this came up
in church, in the scriptures, I would
try to imagine exactly where those seven
veils were situated, and how she could-- wow.
I still don't know.
But in this poem, which is called
the "Seven Veils of Salome," what you're going to find is,
there are several parts, and each part has--
I wouldn't really call it a title.
I'd call it more stage directions.
Because don't forget, it is the same scene
seen through the eyes of various characters who are watching it.
Now, one of the things about the story of Salome
that I didn't realize when I was a child,
only realized a few years ago, was
that it was not Salome's decision
actually to ask the head of John the Baptist.
She asked her mother, Herodias, what
she should request, when Herod said I'll give you anything
in my kingdom-- which is a bad thing to do before someone does
a dance like that.
But when he offered that, she went to her mother
and said, what should I ask for?
Her mother, who had been rebuffed
by John the Baptist earlier, a few days before, had an answer.
"The Seven Veils of Salome."
"Salome awaits her entrance.
I was standing in the doorway when he reproached her,
not with words, but a simple absence of attention.
She was smiling, holding out a slip of meat, skewered fruit,
some delicacy he'd surely never seen
in all his dust-blown, flea-plagued wanderings.
And he stared at it for the longest while,
as if the offer came from it, and not those tapered fingers,
my mother's famous smile.
He said nothing, merely turned away his large and beautifully
arrogant head.
Herodias in the doorway.
More than anything, I ache to see her so girlish.
She steps languidly into their midst,
as if onto a pooled expanse of grass.
Or as if she were herself a meadow,
unruffled green ringed with lilies,
instead of these red-rimmed eyes,
this wasteland soaked in smoke and pleasure.
Ignorant, she moves as if inventing time.
And the musicians scurry to deliver a carpet of flutes
under her flawless heel.
Herod watching.
I should have avoided this, loving her mother as I do,
to the length and breadth of my kingdom,
even to the chilly depths of history's wrath.
But it was my birthday.
I was bent upon happiness and love.
I loved Herodias, my Herodias, who sends her honey daughter
into the feast.
The first veil fell, and all my celebrated years
dissolved in bitter rapture.
Oh, Herodias, you have undone us all.
The fool at Herod's feet.
Just a girl, slim hem, two knots for breasts.
Sheathed potential caught before the inevitable overbloom
and rot.
Life's revenge of death eludes us.
All any of us men want, really, just a girl.
Otherwise, who could fathom it?
How is it to be fathomed?
At his behest, her mother's, it matters little.
She was dispatched into the circle of elders,
and there she rivets the world's desire.
Salome dancing.
I have a head on my shoulders, but no one sees it.
No one reckons with a calculated wrist or pouting under them.
I've navigated this court's attentions,
and I will prove I can be crueler than government.
I will delegate what nature's given
me, this body, this anguish, oiled curves
and perfumed apertures.
I will dance until they've all lost their heads.
The noble slobbering over their golden goblets,
the old king sweating on his throne,
my mother in the doorway, rigid with regret.
The jester, who watches us all and laughs.
Oh Mother, what else is a girl to do?"