A LETTER TO A BUTCHER'S BOY FROM AN ANONYMOUS MARQUIS
ON THE EVE OF SAID MARQUIS' ARREST

Listen, garçon, there's not much time left for me. They'll kick the door in and put the manacles
on me and whore me through the streets to the gallows and hang me beautiful like Sebastian for
the things you and I know. They'll never know what we know and that's why they'll hang me,
garçon, mon petit boucher. Don't tell your father that you're going to see me hang but, when the
stage gives way to my body imperfect, remember the sound of his cleaver scraping sinew from a
femur and know that some things only sing when they're dead.