Tall Puppets
Her flesh finds fissures in the ocher, mask and mantle, lures—a flushed cheek through the eye hole, tapered chin in wide glazed ruse of mouth. The girl she wears is headed for the low world, other shadows; here, takes two cloaked men to swagger that three-headed dog, four blue- jeaned legs to stomp and fume the master’s lust. Big figures, epic craft. And yet, enshrined in plaster, gesso, pulp, each glimpse of skin bares elder mysteries—that slack male arm up roan Demeter’s sleeve, an elbow’s crook askew in indigo. Huge armatures, tall tell. But through those gods, small hands charm far within, far stranger source: a girl, the dark.