Author: [[Nick Roberts]] --- # Performance notes *baroque and threatening* # The crucifix in olden days was given to leaders as a prize, encrusted with emeralds and rubbed down with myrrh, and placed in a gilded cupboard in a sacred place in the leader’s house, and only brought out on special occasions— feasts, high holydays and masses, and shown to only a select and joyful few who bent their heads and sang love carols all without the leader’s name in them. I heard a woman crying early in the morning, down the hall or out in the street, and I wanted to stop what she was doing and tell her that the emeralds are runoffs, the cupboard is vinegar, and the myrrh—looking closely—is riddled with maltworms.