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Locket Icon The oyster plates of Rutherford B. Hayes, racked up, spotlit back of the Plexiglas, although he lost the popular election, beam democratically on diners who’ve removed their hats—and not. I mind the men’s refusal to uncover. Women shiver bare-shouldered in A/C. Six-cratered moons, the plates, their hollows gilded, decorate the busy walls. They bring no body food. Some nights Maria, mopping out the stalls in the women’s locker room, sees (not a shroud, not the dignity of shrouds) a unitard float—footless, armless, headless—through the tile out to the treadmills. She does not report the poor ghost going through its repetitions to Cephas at the desk. It is no vision; it isn’t Saint Lucia (eyes ripped out in Diocletian’s tough administration) appearing nightly. She’s not shivering. Her icon shows her wrapped in red, her eyes re-doubled—two intensely in her head and two that she hands to the icon-reader, fresh and undamaged on a golden plate. 71 HadawayRevisedPages 8/15/06 3:09 PM Page 71 ...

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