PARTISAN REVIEW
209
The skirts were long and clumsy. How we waded through
summer as they hung from us in fat folds muffling our thin hips
and flat behinds as if we were matrons vast as car barns. But
sweaters were tight. Through the sweater you could see ridges of
brassiere like targets for gunnery practice, through the fluorescent
pilled nylon (like goosepimples), the more affluent pastel cash–
meres (kept under the bed in trunks by girls in my dormitory,
fingered like gold: a nice suburban girl counted her wealth, her
worth in cashmeres), the ubiquitous flat lambswool cardigans and
pullovers, playing their demure mother and daughter acts under
the false teeth of pearls.
Sacky tweed skirts, little grey suits in which no one looked
real. What you were supposed to wear to job interviews, along
with some hat, white shoes, white gloves. In my drawer were two
pairs of white gloves never worn except at job interviews: some
mad connection between being paid $1.35 an hour to type and
carrying a pair of white gloves. Purity. Virginity. We used to rub
chalk on them to make them white.
The other choice besides the acres of swishing skirt was called
a sheath. Those were alluring gowns into which we crept, first
having squashed flat the belly, the hips, the waist, slowly, slowly,
toothpaste cramming back into the tube.
If
a zipper broke, we
spilled out. Bottles filled with our fizzing blood or stale water, it
did not matter; they stood alone, their sex so much more definite
than our own, hard and horny as the carapace of beetles. Our flesh
served them in bondage: the bondage of which all these clothes
speak.
What is a woman walking on high heels? What is a giraffe on
roller skates? The platform shoes clumping along now depress me.
Spike heels used to turn ankles and break legs regularly, catching
in
gratings, escalators, cracks at elevator doors, stairway treads.
Who grows tumid at clumsy mincing, at the warped back of a
woman bobbing stiffly--who cannot run if she has to, who is
hobbled, distorted, learning to endure pain?
Longline brassieres underneath staved in the ribs, shoved the
stomach up into the esophagus, raised the rigid breasts till their
padded peaks brushed the chin. Breasts were hard and shiny as the
apple stuck in the mouth of the roast suckling pig. Strapless bras-
