Justin+Fourth+Wall

Mother Love by Chaim Gross, Smithsonian American Art Museum
[|Smithsonian American Art Museum]  She bore in her arms a child, a baby of some three months old, who winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of day; because its existence, heretofore, had brought it acquainted only with the gray twilight of a dungeon, or other darksome apartment of the prison…..When the young woman—the mother of this child—stood fully revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as that she might thereby conceal a certain token, which was wrought or fastened into her dress. In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore; and which was of a splendor in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony.- from __The Scarlet Letter__ by Nathaniel Hawthorne pg. 50

//Mother and Daughter// by Anne Sexton Linda, you are leaving your old body now, It lies flat, an old butterfly, all arm, all leg, all wing, loose as an old dress. I reach out toward it but my fingers turn to cankers and I am motherwarm and used, just as your childhood is used. Question you about this and you hold up pearls. Question you about this and you pass by armies. Question you about this — you with your big clock going, its hands wider than jackstraws — and you'll sew up a continent. Now that you are eighteen I give you my booty, my spoils, my Mother & Co. and my ailments. Question you about this and you'll not know the answer — the muzzle at the oxygen, the tubes, the pathways, the war and the war's vomit. Keep on, keep on, keep on, carrying keepsakes to the boys, carrying powders to the boys, carrying, my Linda, blood to the bloodletter. Linda, you are leaving your old body now. You've picked my pocket clean and you've racked up all my poker chips and left me empty and, as the river between us narrows, you do calisthenics, that womanly leggy semaphore. Question you about this and you will sew me a shroud and hold up Monday's broiler and thumb out the chicken gut. Question you about this and you will see my death drooling at these gray lips while you, my burglar, will eat fruit and pass the time of day.

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