Miniatures

The kids unearth a tiny medicine bottle from the garden, a gift raced in

from the cold. Over the sink I unplug its century of dirt, remembering

Dorothy Parker’s impractical daydreams of a garden and a family.

Everyone laughed at her – “Flowers? Children? You?” – as she nursed

her hangovers with elixirs from minuscule bottles just like this.

In a moment the kids are back breathless and grassy, delivering me

a bouquet of three violets striped purple and white to fill the bottle.

In the kitchen window, sunlight blooms them giant bearded orchids

a tribute to Georgia O’Keeffe,

who also yearned for children, or the vessel of her

petals glowing, monumental, filling walls, commanding rooms

until she fled, destined – or resigned? It’s so much the same

for women, in the end – to tower bones over the desert. My violets beg

to be painted, but not miniature, not still-life, larger than life

in an O’Keeffian landscape to exalt the ordinary. Parker’s mundane

Americans staggered across existential planes, too

big for their insignificance, wanting more of life without knowing

what, or how to ask. Isn’t all art, ultimately, self-portrait? Here I am

with no wall-space for a large canvas. A big house crowded

on the corner is lit up with bottles, purple succulents filling every inch

of the bay window. An elderly woman lives there. An artist, I imagine.

On our evening walks my husband mutters about the impracticality of her

knick-knacks and houseplants. “What are they for?” he snipes

meaning maybe, “How can empty bottles and cactus fulfill a person?” or

“Why leave such a mess for someone else to clean up after you die?” or

“Doesn’t she have any children?”

or even “Why doesn’t she have any children?” He doesn’t understand

questions of practicality are existential challenges.

He loathes clutter for the dust it catches.

I long for the light it also catches.

To him there’s little difference between collecting and hoarding. Love

his heart. I want to tell him about women. How we all become collections

of bones in the desert, vessels hoarding dirt. “Imagine what a pretty picture

it makes from the inside looking out,” I say instead, give his arm a squeeze.

Imagine having it all

in one frame. A window like a painting, a painting like a window;

imagine not having to choose, having a family

set small among cactus, children casting color through the glass.