John the Posthumous by Jason Schwartz Page A

childhood, if more ornate, had been devised for cadavers, in fact. Pluck its feathers, they say, and a butcherbird resembles a blade. Hold it this way and it resembles a hand aslant. But skinning implements have no place in a good home, have they? The demeanor of these, I submit, and of the leavings, to say nothing of the town steeples—evident now at the near window—settles the question.
    Flay , in any case, once meant bed , as in a ditch or a trench, or on a wide green lawn one summer afternoon—given the terms of the early American lexicon.
    While stab would prevail on the more suitable occasions.
    At the time of our murder, reader, a knife might display the victim’s name. This was less the habit later in the century. Messages of other kinds, engraved on the male side, were customary in some marriages. The effect upon the heart, as distinct from the throat, to cite only two bodily objects, was certainly great—but was usually described in unfortunate ways. The letter Vas arrow, in one view. In another, the letter L as pistol or gibbet. Immurement of this sort, whatever the text, came to seem rather too mannered a practice.
    The man stands in the corridor, the woman at the top of the stairs.
    The color changes at the ridge—toward the wood now, once and for all. Blue often implies something human. Black letters, as these, to the left of the emblem, contrive to escape harm.
    Surgical instruments—in a hemlock box, in a bridget—would sometimes assume unusual forms. They were likely to split, grips of this variety—stag instead of hickory or larch. Ivory—forgive me the handprints and the rats, the late hour—was always taken down first, the carts dashed with pitch. The bone saw would say the boy’s name. Horn saws would bloom in the road. But some maps favor exaggeration, do they not? From above, the houses seem to bleed. These versions, rivets pitted brown, were reserved for oxen—wounded in the straw, or lost—and these, with nickel-plated teeth, for cuckolds and Jews. Another tale, offering the latter facts more amply, and less dully, notes the shape of the rope in the dayroom.
    I f death is a room, as one conception has it, then where is the family? Let us wait in a safe place and consider this. Are the doors an argument for ornament? Doubtless they are said to resemble sad men. The route to the bureau, I suspect, is just as you remember it. Do excuse the collars—or excise them. Can we conclude that the bed is properly dressed? See how the knife lies there, at this angle, in lieu of you.
    I n the history of adultery, women cross all morning, east to west, as in the parable of the gown: a murderer left—in the parlance—for dead, without further confession, post after post after post. In the history of adultery, women cross from this corner to that, in gowns, as in the parable of the copse, where a body is found—broken, in one description; dead, in another—though suddenly the origins of corpse seem in order, or at least preferable, post after post after post, the other houses without a sound. In the history of adultery, men fall on the lawn, and at the gate, one by one, or they kneel, merely, among a woman’s things, as in the parable of the house, where the room faces south, and where the husband finds the wife.
    S ee how the drapes disclose the road.
    The declining hour, I can confide, is always lonely, a fact that returns us to the terms of the town—but I ought not speak so often of grief.
    Manners for mourners differed somewhat in the country, where a dinner-setting might include, to the left of the strop, a jar of hearts. A child’s knives should sit crosswise. A white plate should conceal a dark card. Have they measured as yet the length of the carcass? Grouse, in bruises, to use the local phrase, was acceptable on these occasions. Pox hen, gutted and trussed—or potted—was not. The decorum of boys, as to the body, and in the event of slaughter, for that matter—the sheep at the rail,