In what then shall the ornamentation of rooms consist?
—Edith Wharton, The Decoration of Houses
In her middle period my mother painted men's heads, Tuesdays,—Edith Wharton, The Decoration of Houses
at the local ceramics shop with her best friend June. She made
these men as pretty as girls. The brave black sea captain in slick
oilskin. A blue-eyed Irish rover, his cap set with clovers. The blonde
firefighter, whose cheeks flushed from the flames. Were there others?
I've forgotten. Glazes and rags, brushes and paints, stashed
in a tackle box, off limits to her children. Each piece took weeks
to finish, to stroke on fine lashes, aim a spot of silver in the pupil
to animate the eye. Then to the kiln, once, twice, to harden this beauty,
burn it in. She carried them home in cardboard boxes, wrapped in newsprint
from Korea, hung them between sink and fridge, to gather there
the wooly dust that clings to kitchen grease. Wharton gives us boudoir
and ballroom, gallery and den, but nothing to guide us in the kitchen—
no judgments there, concerned with beauty, to set your life against.
