Still Life: A Portrait

​

Kate Kingston

​

 

. . . doctors delayed treating miscarriages

. . . under the state’s strict abortion laws . . . ProPublica

 

What is the color of almost born?

—turquoise, teal, ultramarine—

 

In this painting, mother and fetus

are frozen in the brackish green of stillness.

The embryo’s heart is sacred, a crime

to remove it from the womb while beating.

The artist erases the mother’s face,

chooses aquamarine for the amniotic

fluid, the dark ocean of the pelvic floor.

 

What is the color of miscarriage?

—citron, cinnabar, crimson—

 

The artist chooses magenta for the crowning,

the visible tiny head exposed for three hours

to the cruel air of indecision, a risky passage,

this wait to slip into the hands of a doctor.

 

What is the color of sepsis?

—burnt sienna, ochre, raw umber—

 

The artists paints a line of veridian ants

in the upper left hand corner. Their small bodies

form a title; her quill-like brush writes Sepsis.

On her pallet she blends white, red, and blue

into the grey area. The artist paints

the mother’s hips, thighs, pelvis, a shade

of burnt umber diffused with titanium white.

Her charcoal pencil outlines the cervix

in shades of grey and more grey.

 

What is the color of a child’s first breath?

—transparent yellow, hazy blue, riptide orange—

 

There is no first breath in this painting,

no last push, only the gray area where bacteria

slips into the womb, unnoticed. The embryo

heart ceases in three hours, the mother’s heart

in three days. The artist etches more ants

streaming in the lower right-hand corner,

a signature. A calligraphy of fragile letters

floats over oils like an untethered umbilical cord.

 

The artist sets her brushes in a jar of turpentine.

The doctor peels off his disposable gloves.