Gypsy Life

Gypsies gathered in an old barn converted into an old theater. The family tuned tired instruments and talked to each other using their eyes, seldom mouths. Mouths occupied on froths of beer and puffs of cigarette. Smog free smoke, collection of sources in, to the rafters from outside the barn doors. Smoke that burns your eyes pulling tears, pulling juice from vegetables and meats over fire. Smoke that the gypsy voices rise through, emotion filled notes that waft the smoke back outside into the rain. Someone saw a rainbow, faint and thin over the small country town. It faded out in front of heavy grey clouds that began to sweat rain pebbles on Kuks children who didn’t notice.

We laughed together in song, the gypsies and I on an ash covered floor. Laughed with our raw hands beating appreciative claps in mutual direction. Laughed with voices that blend together in air like to many contrasting colors on one pallet, accidentally mixing a perfect earth tone. Laughed with bodies, not quite touching, but moving to the same song, becoming the same body of dance on a floor built for freedom, for equality. Clearing the ash and the smoke. Becoming a voice, without a language.


-Casey Sullivan