Page 51 - WTP Vol.X #8

—even though I had the sight
of a bird-of-prey—I could
not thread a needle; how
I pricked myself. How I cringed when Tante, who came to
oversee the cleaning, told me
I’d better learn to thread a needle in case my art never amounted
to much. When Mlle. Micas
laid a hand on my shoulder, it felt like a flower, a gardenia.
She unsnarled the string when
I could not manage a knot.
No woman had touched me
with this brand of kindness
since my mother died.
Her concern said: we are alike because we are unlike anyone else.
I offered to trade her
drawing lessons for sewing.
Better schooled than I,
and in possession
of an untroubled intelligence,
she knew how to look
at an object. Within weeks
I was devilishly proud of my student.
Resting on an easel, her portrait cured in the corner of Father’s workshop; each brushstroke a tissue of touches. Each time she sat, she looked less frail, less like someone not expected to live until her next birthday.
As I searched the floor for coins to buy soup and bread,
Nanette made eye contact.
I felt a bewildering urge
to etch my initials into the heart- shaped locket around her neck.
Harris teaches creative writing at the University of Washington and at the Writer’s Workshop in Seattle. She is editor and founder of Switched-on Gutenberg. Recent books include You Haven’t Asked About My Wedding or What I Wore; Poems of Courtship on the American Frontier (University of Alaska Press); and a memoir, Horses Never Lie About Love (Simon & Schuster). Other poetry collections include Oh How Can I Keep on Singing?: Voices of Pioneer Women and The Dust of Everyday Life: An Epic Poem of the Northwest (Open Road Press). Among her novels are Alaska (Harper & Row) and The Pearl of Ruby City (St. Martin’s). “The Sitting” is part of a series of dramatic monologues on the life and art of French painter Rosa Bonheur.
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