There is a shroud, washing, dripping, blotting out visions, but the sound echoes around the room. Long vowels, quiet hums travel out in waves, hands weaving through like needles, stitching, quilting, layering self to other. A sharp chop dissects. We hesitate, in that round, our song unsure in our mouths, as we try to listen to others, and find the pitch. How can I fit in? How do we get ot a we, to make a joyful noise onto the lord? The master is in the big house. There is a father in the house, and generations, hosts, angels.

We sing in counterpoint: against forgetting, against vanishing, into a layering: sonic texture, a mixtery. Lilt, pulse, an unacknowledged boot that comes down, and is woven into a dancing voice. The impulse is hidden, behind doors, under skirts, ruffled dresses.

There is a Sims monument in Montgomery .

We take affront: gynecolog-Y.

We animate our bodies to give shape to our sounds.

I just start laughing. I just shudder and clench.

In call and response, we open up our private bodies, and breathe in laughter, taken in, held up, blown out. For breath is the rhythm of this, the song. Recoiling, and falling, and reaching across.

---- Petra Kuppers