Body Painting

Pioneer

40 Pioneer I want to see Mary Snow Sinton step out of me and begin sewing wrappers from her mother’s checked muslin dress. I want to hold the implements she held, coffee grinder heavy in her hand, fragrance snapping out of the beans, want to lean into the grater to tear the cheese from its round, cheese that sat in the coldhouse for months. Of her brother, she says, maybe sorrow will ripen him. She doesn’t know what’s ahead for her, two babies cold in her arms, whom she’ll prop up in the parlor to pretend, for a few minutes, that they live. She won’t want to part with their bodies. She doesn’t know how her heart will swell around the kernals of sorrow, two irritating grains that the heart makes into pearls. I have her fingers that can sew tiny stitches, gifts for the children I might not have, who might never live. She didn’t think of the losses that could ensue, baby and baby gone to the grave, another almost grown, gone. What have I chosen— no children, no family to gather around the candles I provide? Mary Snow Sinton steps out of me with her tongs for canning, the jars boiling, jumping in the rack. The peaches, soft as babies’ heads, lie in piles in the sink. ...