Good Bones Read Free

ourselves.
    And in fact they don’t live in it, because such women are fictions: composed by others, but just as frequently by themselves,
    though even stupid women are not so stupid as they pretend: they pretend for love.
    Men love them because they make even stupid men feel smart: women for the same reason,
    and because they are reminded of all the stupid things they have done themselves,
    but mostly because without them there would be no stories.
    No stories! No stories! Imagine a world without stories!
    But that’s exactly what you would have, if all the women were wise.
    The Wise Virgins keep their lamps trimmed and filled with oil, and the bridegroom arrives, in the proper way, knocking at the front door, in time for his dinner;
    no fuss, no muss, and also no story at all.
    What can be told about the Wise Virgins, such bloodless paragons?
    They bite their tongues, they watch their smart mouths, they sew their own clothing,
    they achieve professional recognition, they do every right thing without effort.
    Somehow they are insupportable: they have no narrative vices:
    their wise smiles are too knowing, too knowing about us and our stupidities.
    We suspect them of having mean hearts.
    They are far too clever, not for their own good but for ours.
    The Foolish Virgins, on the other hand, let their lamps go out:
    and when the bridegroom turns up and rings the doorbell,
    they are asleep in bed, and he has to climb in through the window:
    and people scream and fall over things, and identities get mistaken,
    and there’s a chase scene, and breakage, and much satisfactory uproar:
    none of which would have happened if these girls hadn’t been several bricks short of a load.
    Ah the Eternal Stupid Woman! How we enjoy hearing about her:
    as she listens to the con-artist yarns of the plausible snake,
    and ends up eating the free sample of the apple from the Tree of Knowledge:
    thus giving birth to Theology;
    or as she opens the tricky gift box containing all human evils,
    but is stupid enough to believe that Hope will be some kind of a solace.
    She talks with wolves, without knowing what sort of beasts they are:
    Where have you been all my life?
they ask.
Where have I been all my life?
she replies.
    We
know!
We
know! And we know wolfishness when we see it!
    Look out
, we shout at her silently, thinking of all the smart things we would do in her place.
    But trapped inside the white pages, she can’t hear us,
    and goes prancing and warbling and lolloping innocently towards her doom.
    (Innocence! Perhaps that’s the key to stupidity,
    we tell ourselves, who think we gave it up long ago.)
    If she escapes from anything, it’s by sheer luck, or else the hero:
    this girl couldn’t tear her way out of a paper bag.
    Sometimes she’s stupidly fearless; on the other hand,
    she can be just as equally fearful, though stupidly so.
    Incest-minded stepfathers chase her through ruined cloisters,
    where she’s been lured by ruses too transparent to fool a gerbil.
    Mice make her scream: she whimpers, teeth chattering, through the menacing world,
    running – but running involves legs, and is graceless – fleeing, rather.
    Leglessly she flees, taking the wrong turn at every turn,
    a white chiffon scarf in the darkness, and we flee with her.
    Orphaned and minus kind aunts, she makes inappropriate marital choices,
    and has to dodge ropes, knives, crazed dogs, stone flower-urns toppled off balconies,
    aimed at her jittery head by suave, evil husbands out for her cash and blood.
    Don’t feel sorry for her, as she stands there helplessly wringing her hands:
    fear is her armour.
    Let’s face it, she’s our inspiration! The Muse as fluffball!
    And the inspiration of men, as well! Why else were the sagas of heroes,
    of their godlike strength and superhuman exploits, ever composed,
    if not for the admiration of women thought stupid enough to believe them?
    Where did five hundred years of love lyrics come from,
    not to mention those plaintive