The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: The Girl Who Talked to Paintings by Shannon K. Winston

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The Girl Who Talked to Paintings

For Katharine Millet, the original subject of
John Singer Sargent’s Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose

1.

She’s long gone, but I always look for her:
the girl Sargent buried in paint. Like dirt,
each brush stroke covered her dark, knotted hair.
Greens blotted out the patterns in her skirt.
Her asymmetrical smile and fire eyes:
he erased those too. And the eczema,
her knocked knees. Sargent wanted fireflies,
lanterns, a garden with a soft aura.
How her chest buckled under the pastels.
How her body was heavy with lilies,
roses, and carnations. Be a bluebell,
be a good girl. Smile. Be sure to say please.
Katharine, Catherine, or was it Kate?
I, too, was a first draft, a sketch, half-baked.



2.

I, too, was a first draft, a sketch, half-baked.
A girl with angled teeth and a wet lisp:
all of my life I’ve felt like a mistake.
The girl in school no one wanted to kiss.
My parents fought and fought about my name,
as if unsure they wanted me at all.
They only agreed on my middle name:
Katherine with a “K.” What a sweet doll—
words no one ever said. Tubes and wires
keeping preemie me alive. Robot girl,
here’s a lantern. A matchstick. Light a fire.
I smiled. My grandmother gave me her pearls.
I said thank you. When they chipped: I’m sorry.
And this is only part of the story.



3.

And this is only part of the story.
Stroke by stroke, Sargent painted two sisters
in Katharine’s place: Polly and Dolly.
Petal-smooth skin, ruffled dresses, flowers
waiting to be plucked as one might a rose.
Give them lanterns. These props propped up by props.
Turn their heads just so. Yes, girls, keep this pose.
The way, in college, I got all made up
for boys I’d never love. Foundation, rouge,
lipstick: each day I picked a different way
to transform myself. I wore rings and huge
hoop earrings. Make me better. Make me good.
Be good. The soundtrack of my childhood.



4.

Be good. The soundtrack of my childhood:
Be better. Would my father love me then?
What had I done wrong? Said? Tell me, what had . . . ?
I scanned each day for my mistakes: five, ten,
twenty, thirty times. Something I had said
made my father scream. Curled on the floor,
I pulled at the strings of my old bedspread.
Be good. I was his curious daughter
who dared to ask about his new “best friend,”
about flowers, his wedding, his new wife.
Who said, But I thought Mom was your best friend?
And how much did he spend on his new life?
My nickname in school: nosy rosy. Girl,
be quiet. Sit pretty with your fake pearls.



5.

I sat so quietly in my fake pearls—
when my father left, when my mother cried.
When I burned myself with a hair curler.
When I crashed my first bike trying to fly,
and blood trickled between my legs. She’s lost
her womanhood, my aunt cried on the phone.
For days, I sat in a warm bath. At last,
I went back to school and then everyone
asked: What happened to you? I got quiet.
A decade later, in a swimsuit store
in Nice a clerk said that I wasn’t quite
right. I had such a flat chest. A doctor.
You must see one soon. In the fitting room:
gold, pink, and black suits. Each one a costume.



6.

Yes, Sargent’s girls, too, wear costumes. Each one
in a dress (nightgown?) to match the lilies.
The white ruffles itched their skin, the lanterns’
glow chafed their hands. Their legs cramped. How early
they learned beauty’s stringent cost of entry.
Or maybe not. Maybe the saleswomen
flocked to them with rose perfume and bracelets
and Mary Janes. Try x, y, and z. Then
model for us. What sweet girls, dolls. Yes, tilt
your heads just so. Maybe they soaked it up.
But what do they do when no one’s around?
Do they drop their dolls and chip china cups?
What would they say if the painting had sound?
Do they trace their own shadows on a wall?
Like me, do they whisper: No,
                                                        that’s not me
                                                                        at all?



7.

No, that’s not her. No. Once, I got so close
to Sargent’s Carnation, Lily, Lily,
Rose, I saw only globs of paint. I froze
before sticky reds. A security
guard in the Tate Museum shooed me back.
Not before I soaked in the thick yellows,
and swirly greens. Not before I could ask:
You in there? Katharine, Catherine, or Kate?
Not before I saw a gooey white dot,
a few dried cracks, and a rash upward brush
stroke. Did you slip through the uneven spots?
Up close, everything sags or turns to mush
or becomes something else entirely.
The way pruning and taming stand in for
                 love. The way love is confused with beauty.
                 The way Sargent is and is not my father.

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