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I
wondered how he’d do it
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how would he get that knotted mass
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of
cartilage and bone to hang
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from his shoulder, dragging his spine
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into a lazy S? Which shoulder
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would he choose? Or would it be
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one
of those Mr Punch jobs,
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dead centre and rising
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like a mountain peak behind his ears?
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Then there were the legs.
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How
would he get those elegant pins
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the ones he’d used in Hamlet
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and
Henry V - to twist and lope,
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lose inches from the thighs?
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And
would both hands be the same size?
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Or
would one be shrunken and cramped,
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inadequate to the holding of swords,
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the
balancing of crowns
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or
the wooing of maidens?
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My
schoolmates knew, of course,
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as
they showed me, aping my jagged
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shape and halting gait
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when the teachers drilled us into line
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outside the Regal.
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Olivier, in the end, chickened out,
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stuffed a cushion up his tunic,
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stuck putty on his face,
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and
kept the legs as neatly turned
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as ever.
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