University of Northern Iowa

CodpieceAuthor(s): Debra HinesSource: The North American Review, Vol. 272, No. 2 (Jun., 1987), p. 26Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25124842 .

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N A R

"She's gained a lot of weight," my mother said. I

hadn't been expecting that answer. In fact, I'd thought Ann might be dramatically wasted.

"You know," my mother said, "she's been ashamed

for you to see her. She's put on close to forty pounds. She doesn't want you to see her like this."

"She's been doing pottery and ceramics in the art

therapy room," my father said. "Isn't that nice?"

When we got to the hospital, I waited in the lobby while my parents went upstairs. I looked at some stuffed

penguins in the gift shop. A few patients in green-paper robes walked the hallways. There were a lot of tamped out cigarette butts on the floor.

My parents finally came back down and my father

said, "She's just not up to seeing you today." "But I want to see her," I said. "She wanted you to have this." My mother handed

me a ceramic plate. "She made it in art therapy." The

plate had been formed in a mold and Ann had enameled

green and purple over the pattern of grape leaves that formed its border. In the center, she'd written in blue

enamel, "For My Sister." I turned the plate over, avoid

ing my mother's eyes. A nurse or aide, someone with an

awkward hand, had scratched Ann's name into the under

side while the clay was still soft. I couldn't think of anything to say. In the back seat of

the car, I kept turning the plate over and over in my hands. It was very pretty, but it was also the sort of thing anybody could have made in arts and crafts, even summer

camp.

That night, I stayed up and ran a late-night retro

spective in my head. The life works of my sister: false houses and frosted figurines; secrets that she kept locked

with her in her room for days, that she'd buried in silence and under the forty pounds of fat they said she'd gained. I

kept thinking about all those cigarette butts on the hospi tal floor, then saw them lit, glowing with the seeds of cancer. I tried to force myself to cry because I thought I

should; then the tears fell and my nose ran and I really couldn't stop. My mother must have heard me. She knocked on my door and came and sat on my bed like a visitor. Finally she said, "I hope you will believe someday that I tried."

The next week, I saw my sister at the halfway house. Her face was puffy and her hair was a black cloud and she was

wearing an orange terrycloth robe and slippers. She had cutout paper snowflakes on her window, which over

looked an alleyway. "Jill," she said, and the sound of my name was star

tling. She looked fat and scared, and suddenly I felt such a

surge of love and grief that I was rooted where I stood. We faced each other with our hands at our sides. The moment

passed and I embraced my sister as if, for all her size, she

might disappear on the spot. "Thank you for the plate." "Do you like it?" "Yes." Our voices were quiet, almost whispers. "I picked that pattern myself," she said. "It was my

choice."

"Yes." I turned then, so she couldn't see the look in

my eyes. "I was hoping it was."

DEBRA HINES

CODPIECE

Protection exaggerates

All form of the vulnerable thing. The snail is buoyed by his shell.

The sheath is larger than the sword.

The quill lends silhouette to ink.

When I ponder the codpiece now,

Tracing with the tip of my finger The outline of its existence,

Up from the battlefield

And into the edicts of priests, I focus on the bone ribs

Of this parapet.

Coins were hidden within.

There, wealth and reproduction Were corralled as notion.

And as latent symbol, the codpiece Could never remain modest.

It began as a triangle?

Then bloomed, blossomed, ballooned?

Became poofed, padded, pouting. At once a pulpit pursued by speech,

It was a scroll unfurled by utterance.

As the mouthpiece of shy men, Its look and feel

Passed for thought. Fine white silks spilled forth,

Shouting love from the trunk hose to the chin.

When pumpkin breeches and pear-shaped Venetians

Came to fruition, Stuffed with horsehair, straw and grain,

The new pants obliterated the groin. How thoroughly did bombast

Inflate the thighs!

What lay between them

Withered to a plaint, a pity, a sigh In the smug confessional.

26 June 1987

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