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56 A Face to Meet the Faces Reputation Laura Madeline Wiseman —Hamburg, Iowa, 1882 My mind climbs up and down the sermon given without notes at the pulpit of a Des Moines church by a minister only just widowed. A man built like a skyscraper, each story balanced on the one before. His feet and ankles in polished boots. His legs, pelvis, buttocks in the loose fabric and tight stitches of ordered readymade slacks from the Sears and Roebuck catalogue. Each well read page saved as tissue to wipe the delicate blossom of the ass. Inside his pants below the ironed button down, the imported ebony of his coat, the hard white band sung around his neck, all of this, his mystery. He didn’t sweat or prance. Not the antics of Henry Ward Beecher or the cool logic of Abraham. He kept still. No phrase swayed him. He spoke. His lips moved, his tongue in the wet bath of his mouth. His blue eyes hot flames in the container of his face. After his words, I waited to shake his hand. He said, Yes, I know who you are. I’m sure I held his palm and fingers too long for polite conversation. ...

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