a… 199 THE CHESTNUT SELLERS

THE CHESTNUT SELLERS

1

The chestnut sellers, early this year, stand guard on every corner; muffled in overcoats, braziers aglow, springing up overnight, fully armed, from the pavement.

2

Chestnut seller! Tell me your name. Your breath stains the sunny air of late October. Are you merely winter’s harbinger, or do you fulfil a darker, more sinister purpose? 3

“Why question me? I look at you and have the eyes of Rembrandt’s eighty-three year old woman. You do not ask her painted surface why. In the quiet of the gallery you accept what I am.”

4

Chestnut seller! Shuffling by your brazier; awaiting the next customer with hungry eyes. Your chestnuts emit only the ghost of their winter fragrance. 5

“Look closely! Look! The embers glow like hellfire. The chestnuts blacken and split. In each fissure, floury, sweet, see Shelley’s brain exposed upon that memorable beach.”

6

Chestnut seller! Bodies burn and crack, skulls contain, perhaps, only the kernels of dead thoughts. Yet cannibals devour the brain, hoping to gain the dead man’s qualities.

7

“Look again! Look! Ask yourself: can any fugitive thought leap heavenward from the chestnut’s dead white flesh? The hammer-blows demolishing its frail, protective shell, did Any of Joe Orton remain?” 8

Chestnut seller! Must the skull crack either from God’s heat or Love’s hammer? Must we squander dead cells to oblivion, offer the spirit Incarnate for a transient, empty glory?

9

“Enough! Know even of hell there is no certainty. The chestnuts are ready. Let the flavour of their warm flesh, like Christ’s Body in your mouth, be part of you forever. Come! Buy! Eat!”