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The Cactus Spider, and: Perspective
- Prairie Schooner
- University of Nebraska Press
- Volume 79, Number 4, Winter 2005
- pp. 48-49
- 10.1353/psg.2006.0002
- Article
- Additional Information
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Prairie Schooner 79.4 (2005) 48-49
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The Cactus Spider, and: Perspective
Beth Bachmann
The Cactus Spider
The shadow of the spider on the yellow-lit drape is
briefly human. A leg lounged seductively
over the trim with the coyness of a peepshow girl –
it dangles on silk, then eases itself onto the sill.The cactus, also human – a splayed hand catching the thread
of the body. The confusion of parts like clumsy lovers
or the thin column of figures in Giambologna's Rape of the Sabines –
spines, areoles, fingers, flesh. The stem of the cactus robed
in the spider's stilled limbs; embraced, captive.The third figure – crumpled, beaten, sagging on the couch – witness:
the spider, the cactus, the ordered shadow on the shade.
Perspective
For the fathers who framed it, the thought of light
traipsing a straight linediagrammed the vision of God. A trick of the eye
created the illusion [End Page 48]of a body's contour: the soft curves of a fallen
figure. And who elsecould be held accountable for a shape so quick
to deceive?
...