1904
SARAH PLIMPTON
the skin, the path then filled in behind with pus. These people
will
discover only at some later time that their skin has been penetrated,
the pieces are so sharp that they enter without pain. Perhaps only
then will they remember the little annoying things that I said while
I
doing the damage. Fat ladies, thin ladies, ladies in purple sheaths,
children with party manners and those without, stout men, drunk
men, aunts and uncles with such sweet familiar smiles for me, ushers,
bridesmaids; I circulate through the party leaving my path' of
devastation, waving my broken glass, out under the tents in the rain
and the cold and into the smallest most intimate room
~here
a
couple is trying to be alone with only one small guttered candle
and the shade drawn. The man rises to his feet embarrassed. But
as I come back into a crowded room, my friend the usher spots my
glass and takes it from me, its nest of slivers almost gone. He knows
too much and says so before I can defend myself. I shake my head
at him and he takes me by the arm and leads me through my vic–
tims,
I nod to them smiling broadly, the tips of my teeth just touch–
ing. He finds my coat, helps me into it and waits with me at the
door while the men struggle to find my car, his arm around my
shoulders. Tears are beginning to come to my eyes, the rain mixing
in. He leans out to look into my face as the car comes and wipes
them away with his handkerchief, puts me in my car, turns and
walks away without waving.
It is quiet, everyone is napping. John and Mary never go to
weddings. I wander through the modern rooms airily light, pumped
full of air like an animal that has an intact skin but is decomposing
inside, the gas rising to the surface, underneath the skin. Walking
into John's studio, I find a painting, on the easel, of a very somber
tone not at all his usual palate. Leaning closer into the bumps and
surfaces of the oil paint I see the squat tower and the long
thin
windows of the church, distorted, repeated many times with changing
values, filling the canvas, upside down, sideways, swelling out rising
always out of the dank pond that lies in the background, its depths
receding away. Backing away careful not to prick my skin on the
tacks that are for stretching canvas I knock down another painting
that was lying against the wall, a painting of the marshes and sea
done in squares of bright color, bright greens and blues, fresh and
windy.
