 Chlora's Ice Skates © 1999 Ginger Henry Geyer glazed porcelain with white gold 9 ½” x 11” x 9” Hell had frozen over and Chlora wanted to thaw out. Her bottom needed a warm pillow. She threw off her ugly ski mask, and unlaced her hand-me-down skates. They were for boys. She got the white shoe polish from last Easter and changed their identity. The white writing of Mark Tobey flowed over the skates--Alleluia! Alleluia! and Chlora became Mercury. Just like Peggy Fleming, she cut Chinese calligraphy into the cow pond. Circles fit well under her feet, skating on the surface of good intentions. This linear language was like thin ice so she re-invented old surface treatments-- glazing and scumbling the icy impasto.  Gender-bending might break her silver bladesas they shaved ice into small mounds. Chlora might spike these sno-cones with permanent dye, and if graciously served, those frozen chosen fish would all smile with polite blue teeth and say the sweetest things under water hard as stone, with mouths that smiled and eyes that didn't. The long program was looming ahead. Chlora was dizzy and full of eights. She might be proudly skating backwards but at least she didn't fall down.  |