‘How too weird’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2021
Summary
[Reading Mansfield in Arohata Women's Prison]
A pet weta is what
I remember most
About Her First Ball
we were locked in
the library, a small
reading group
mixed age, race and
crimes unknown
or perhaps withheld
assuming that fiction
put us all on an equal
footing – momentarily
I chose Her First Ball
not entirely at random
but our readings were
unplanned, out loud
in turns, in no
particular order ever
what surprised me
How too weird
was the secret insect
snugly tucked inside
her collar, like the wisps
of tissue in Laurie's gloves
the girl with the short
cropped hair, tattoos
and a hidden weta, she
seemed to ride the cab
to the ball with Laurie
and the Sheridan girls
she might have been
Leila shivering with delight
her eyes bright with it
her lips glistening as
she checked her neck
before dancing free
with the fat man
in her imagination
and for a moment
I became one of the
old dears, my short fat
arms in nice black velvet
my dancing days over
in thrall to this fictional
ball, the girl and her weta
across the slippery floo
ran unexpected radiance
I doubt either of us
would ever know each other
again
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf , pp. 174 - 176Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2018