she doesn’t know. I want to learn to sculpt.
Ruth had asked her not to wash dishes,
clothes, and floors that weren’t hers. Does it matter
that this is an abolitionist’s kitchen and scrub board
or that Mrs. Child sometimes works by her side?
My dear, no one expects you to be a seamstress
forever, but the war means sacrifices for all.
You of all people should know this is no time for beauty.
I’ve saved much of what I’ve earned sewing.
I don’t complain about your thrift, but
you’re not speaking of pennies. Mrs. Child’s woolen dress
smells of pepper and cedar chips
used to keep away moths. Paper and paints
are dear enough. Stone and bronze cost a small fortune.
Grateful doesn’t mean she can’t be angry, too.
Patience doesn’t mean she can’t raise her voice.
Only fury is on her side, but its flutter and weight
make her bend her shoulders, duck.
She says, You’re right. Never mind.
Mrs. Child looks up, as if she heard
the ruffle of feathers or snap of a beak.
She leans over a basket of kindling
and says, My dear girl, I was told
you were found in a field, badly, badly hurt.
Who told you? Edmonia catches her breath,
as if that could keep her from returning
to the snow. I’m not like Hagar.
I was thinking of women closer to home.
We hear terrible reports from the South,
such that made some Northerners understand
the need for the War of the Rebellion.
Edmonia turns her face.
Violence has an echo, a sharp sting.
Mrs. Child straightens her back. I suppose
if men insist on monuments, there’s no reason
why women shouldn’t make them. Harriet Hosmer,
a local girl, sailed to Rome to sculpt in marble.
I’ve never heard of a colored person sculpting,
but I know an artist who might take on a student
in exchange for some housekeeping. Will you fetch
my good stationery? Not the very best, but not the everyday:
That ivory-colored paper with a bit of heft.
In the Art Studio Building
Canvases painted with blue and golden-brown fish
are tacked to Mr. Brackett’s walls. Edmonia hears
a piano and sliding footsteps from ballet students,
shouts from actors rehearsing in other rooms.
A few women paint, but all but one of the sculptors
she meets are white men, most too old
to serve in the army or wealthy enough to have choices.
They stop in to exchange trowels or copper wire,
linger to discuss news of recent battles and the draft.
Some seem perplexed that she’s not in school,
though nod when she says, I’m finished.
They recall that’s true of many girls also seventeen
who are at home doing cross-stich, playing piano,
arranging tea and scones or fairs to raise funds for hospitals.
She hauls buckets of water, sweeps up plaster dust,
cleans picks and knives, twists bits of wood
around wires for armatures to hold up clay.
Her work pays for the chance to watch
Mr. Brackett bend over clay the size and shape of a heart.
His hair, the color of snow, with some strands the shade
of winter-pale butter, falls forward.
His curved back looks concentrated as prayer.
She mixes earth and water, as if her hands were weather,
a storm that could bring together two worlds.
One day he offers a cast of a child’s foot
and clay to mold into its likeness.
She kneads clay like bread, but unlike dough,
which needs a sort of breath to rise,
the air bubbles must be pressed out.
She rolls clay into coils and balls,
then struggles to shape precise slopes.
The clay is too thick, then too thin,
the sole’s terrain too wide.
Doubt knocks her elbow.
She holds back words: I can’t do this.
Memory moves through hands
she curls into fists, which are no use
to an artist. She starts again.
She breathes in the scent like the river
where she dug clay with her aunts
back when everyone’s knees were brown.
Has she come home or has she been tricked
into a sense of safety? She stays alert for chance,
her hands open, eager to press the earthy scent
back into herself, though she stays cautious
as she would in any barter.
Can she make a life with few words,
with curves instead of straight lines?
Can she trust her own two palms
and ten fingers, even through mistakes?
Risk
Her legs and arms grow hard from carrying
firewood for the kiln, buckets of water,
and lifting and kneading mounds of clay.
She molds more clay into the shapes
of hands, feet, and faces.
When Mr. Brackett points out what’s wrong,
her face heats like the kiln in the corner.
What if he’s right?
She can’t do this. She’s no Michelangelo.
Art is as dangerous as memory,
which can dart, spring, or hide in clay,
ready to snag her skirt, clutch her hair,
thrust a coat over her eyes, like the men
who took night as masks,
forced darkness to their side.
No one answered her cries for help.
No words stopped the pounding and poking
of fists, fingers, and feet.
Her mouth can’t hold the roar
knocking through her chest.
Her hand can’t melt the shard of ice she clutches.
She throws the clay across the room.
Mr. Brackett says, Pick it up. Start again.
She scrapes up the clay, flattens it,
keeps working to find a way
to live under the sky that stays far away.
Profiles
Clay reminds her of how much can change.
She prods it out, pushes it in, forgets, remembers,
one motion as necessary as the other.
When Mr. Brackett approves of the feet and hands
she molds, she asks, Can people earn a living at this?
Few would call it a livelihood. I prefer to work
in the round, but pay my bills by using paint.
He glances at his sketch of a haddock. Fishermen
will pay for something to look at come winter.
And I’m glad I made the trip South to measure
John Brown’s face before he was hanged
for trying to help slaves free themselves.
He takes a bust from a shelf of brave faces.
Small copies that sell for less might be popular.
I believe you’re ready to try making a medallion.
Edmonia pinches and presses out the lines
of a face in clay slightly bigger than a silver dollar,
flat on one side. Mr. Brackett advises her to soften
the arch of the eyebrows, lines searing the forehead,
the set of his mouth. The likeness takes many tries.
When both are finally satisfied
with all the features of a face,
he shows her how to make a mold.
She sifts plaster powder between her fingers,
then swiftly stirs in water.
If the plaster is too thin, it won’t harden.
If too thick, it won’t take an impression.
She pours this into the mold she made,
tilting it to fill cracks, blowing so plaster seeps
into shallow hollows. When one layer hardens,
she warms oil and soap she paints on,
brushing away froth and foam.
After the disc hardens, she tips, taps, pries
out the fragile piece, prepares to make another.
Then another, taking and filling orders for her work.
Specks remain even after scrubbing, so each image
is slightly fainter than the one before. Like memory.
The Kitchen Garden
Mrs. Child isn’t in the house, but Edmonia finds
her in the yard, tilting a watering can over witch hazel and sage.
She shoos away red and brown chickens and shouts,
My John Brown medallions were accepted
to sell at the soldiers’ relief fair! Profits will go hospitals,
but money from any orders I take there will go to me.
Mrs. Child sets down the watering can.
That noble man’s courage helped start the war.
And now his face will earn money for good men in need.
I hear you refused my friend’s offer of clothes to mend.
Can you tell me why?
I’ll earn more sculpting than I can with a needle.
Edmonia steps around the rhubarb’s poisonous leaves.
I’ve begun work on a bust of Mr. Longfellow.
Not only a gentleman, but he bought freedom
for some slaves with income from his poems.
Mrs. Child bends to pull roots the color of rust.
Do you have a patron, a buyer?
Someone is interested.
I’m working on more military men, too.
Don’t forget about bread and butter, or aim too high.
You’re young. Art takes time.
May I have a sheet of paper and a stamp?
The Letter
Dear Ruth,
How is school?
Are you happy with your grades?
Did Thomas go to war?
Did he come back?
I have an address.
Your friend,
Edmonia
She won’t write:
Did you ever buy dancing shoes for your aunt?
Do you ever think about me?
At the Soldiers’ Fair
People rejoice over the victory in Gettysburg.
They purchase lace collars, copper spoons,
or lottery tickets for chances to win a grand piano,
a flock of Merino sheep, or a two-ton ox.
Ladies from Twelfth Baptist Church sway as they sing
about sorrow, swelling rivers, survival, and starting over.
Near tables of currant cakes, jars of peach preserves,
pickled muskmelon, and apple marmalade,
Edmonia displays her medallions.
She takes two dozen orders, stifles
a cheer for each new name on her tally.
Between Footsteps
A dark sky threatens rain over the Boston Common,
jammed sidewalks, and shops closed for the parade.
Edmonia elbows past people waving handkerchiefs or small flags.
Mothers, wives, sisters, daughters shout, Forever free.
Children straddle their fathers’ shoulders. Crowds cheer
for a thousand men, many with rifles balanced
by their necks the colors of elm, maple, or pine bark.
Police on horseback keep watch for rioters.
Robert Gould Shaw leads his horse in front
of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry. He pulls the reins
before a platform bright with red, white, and blue bunting.
Colonel Shaw’s mouth looks soft under his mustache.
He lifts blue eyes toward the gray sky, away from a balcony
where his mother, sisters, and the young woman he just
married stand with backs straight as the soldiers’.
Clouds thicken as he raises his sword,
narrows his eyes as if against light.
Edmonia follows his gaze. Angels or manitous,
clear as water or wind, beat their wings.
Briefly they touch almost every other soldier.
One grazes the colonel’s shoulder,
then a man who looks like Thomas.
She hears the feathery thud of wings
under the beat and breath of drums, fifes, and horns.
Are the spirits choosing who will soon cross with them?
Colonel Shaw sheathes his sword, tugs the reins,
kicks his heels into the side of his horse.
With eyes fixed straight ahead,
men march toward the harbor. Some are former slaves,
and sons of slaves, and freedmen.
One could be her father. She’s proud,
watching knees rise, steps matching steps,
often with imperfect timing,
which might be because they haven’t practiced long
or from a hesitation to take orders.
She loves the missed steps most.
Midsummer
The gray cat laps cream.
Mrs. Child’s hands are still
beside a creased newspaper.
She says, Colonel Shaw and half
the 54th Regiment were killed
while storming a fort in South Carolina.
Edmonia picks up the newspaper,
finds names only of officers.
What happened to Thomas?
Light shifts as if stolen by lifting wings,
a slant thin as the line between death and life.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it.
Mrs. Child then answers her own question.
Of course it’s worth it.
We’ll win this holy war
She stiffens her voice until it cracks.
But dear Robert, and hundreds of other brave men,
all with mothers, many with wives and children.
And girls who hoped to be those. Edmonia recalls
Ruth’s hand curved in the shape of the apple
Thomas gave her.
When Mrs. Child looks hard at her,
Edmonia says, I wasn’t talking about myself.
Why shouldn’t you have such dreams?
Before and After Clay
Edmonia crosses streets where soldiers marched.
She faces the balcony Colonel Shaw faced,
recalls how straight he sat on his horse, looking
directly ahead, while spirits touched shoulders.
Filled with memory, she goes to the studio,
rolls clay into strips, then balls that she squeezes together.
She gouges out eyes, presses outward to make a nose,
intent on every contour. She folds in questions:
Was Thomas killed or hurt? Where is Ruth?
She sprinkles water to keep the clay pliable,
binds loss and lastingness,
sculpts not the wavering lines of the lips she saw,
but makes them firmer, the young man’s cheeks flat
as if he always knew his fate. She presses in tales,
like how he’d refused his salary until the men
in his regiment were paid the same as white soldiers.
He wouldn’t seek safety behind rows of men with muskets,
but led the soldiers aiming to destroy a Southern fort.
A shadow slants through the room. It’s late.
Outside, lamplighters lift long sticks to the gas lamps.
She sits in silence until he speaks.
Questions
Art is made of questions and craft.
What she doesn’t know shapes her work
along with the hope t
hat someone believes
in her even if that girl can’t see
what’s under her hands.
Did Ruth get her letter?
It might never have been delivered.
Mail is uncertain in war time.
Is she still in school?
Or has she moved?
Quiet Hallways
A few women in the art studio building paint,
but Anne Whitney is the only one with plaster dust
often embedded in hands that are almost as white.
She invites Edmonia to join her at the Boston Athenæum.
Tall shelves of books and replicas of Roman gods
and Greek goddesses turn people quiet.
Edmonia has never seen sculptures this big,
or oil paintings, with much half-hidden in layers.
She prefers the way sculptures keep important lines
on the surface.
The women are rounded and smooth.
The men’s muscles look strong.
Some statues have missing arms,
but no one reaches as if in need
or shows signs of bruises or boredom.
Edmonia admires them all, but Anne says,
We have enough men on pedestals and goddesses of love.
The courageous don’t always wear crowns. Someday
I’d like to sculpt a beggar, and make her look beautiful.
People don’t want statues of someone wondering
what to have for supper, Edmonia says.
They don’t pay for flaws and secrets.
A true artist can’t think about commissions first, Anne says.
Edmonia knows she means an artist such as herself
with a father who provides for her roof and food.
Small Flames
April 1865
Bells clang from chapels and meeting houses.
The Art Studio Building erupts with shouts:
The war is over! Mr. Brackett flings open his arms,
then drops them, shakes Edmonia’s hand.
Drums and trumpets tap and blare
from the hall where actors practice.
Cannons boom from Boston Common.
As dusk falls, people set candles on windowsills.
Edmonia sets one small flame, too, in her bedroom.
Craving heat on her palms, she kneels to catch
dripping beeswax she sculpts into a gaunt face.
She continues in clay the next morning in the studio.
She carves shaggy hair, big ears, shadows