Being the Murdered Artist

“Figures Eight” by Rebecca Thrush

The thing about being the murdered artist is you set the plot in motion.

You will be the books your husband boxes up and takes down to the sidewalk below in the rickety building elevator, load by load by load, your handwritten notes blue-ink scribbled in the margins. You will be the cardboard sagging on the cracked concrete, the whispering neighborhood kids pressing the sides of the boxes with their feet, checking the weight, checking for another body.

You will be their falling dreams and jerks awake in their stiff little beds, the way they go the long way round the splintered sidewalk and lingerings of crime scene tape, you will be the way they think step on a crack, break your mother’s back. You will be the way, when they hear a shout, a yell, a scream, they will look up, always up, up, up. The way they will always remember the ragdoll tumble of your body, the sound of a landing, an ending, a fracture impact.

You will be the donations your husband makes to art programs, struggling museums, young artists in need, the notation on the check in her honor and his scribbled name on the signature line, worth so much now, worth more than yours.

You will be his classrooms full of eager students, the flattering articles about his work (a genius, they will call him, a genius, footnote your death as something he has overcome), you will be the spaces in between the lines, the hollow in the breaths he takes before he speaks, the shadow under his heels. You will be the momentary emptiness on his canvas before he paints, the unasked interview questions, spilled red paint spreading over tiled floor.

You will be unraveling reels, undeveloped film, the scent of a darkroom lingering on your husband’s body, the stain on his fingertips as he brings them up to his nose to sniff. The way he puts them into boxes like your books and your clothing, drags them, too, down to the sidewalk below. You will be the leaking onto concrete, chemical spill, the lost broken thing that your husband closes the bedroom window against at night.

I still dream of her, he will say. I still have those dreams.

You will be the posthumous displays your friends organize in your honor, the sparkling wine and the wheels of cheese, the cracker crumbs on the floor, crunching under their dress shoe heels.

You will be moss growing on the sides of trees, bark-covered body, a blaze of fire, a broken flower pot, an emptiness in the middle of the frame. You will be spreading dirt and clinging roots, your own face in self portraits, your bared and fragile body, you will be the way they look, the way they swallow, the startle of a hand pulled away by the curator, I only wanted to touch.

You will be the woman interviewed by the journalist at one of the art shows, her mouth trembling upwards after a sip of the complimentary wine, as if she is smiling, as if she thinks she is expected to smile.

When I look at her art, she will say through her smiling mouth, I see death.

You know, don’t you, she will say, and sip again at that sparkling red wine, you see it too.

She will say: of course, you see it too.

About the Author

Cathy Ulrich always steps over cracks in the sidewalk. Her work has been published in various journals, including Flash Frog, Vast Chasm and Wigleaf.

about the artist

Rebecca Thrush works in property management in Massachusetts. Through her poetry she explores interpersonal relationships and what might be behind the veil. Her artwork focuses on urban spaces, nature, and self-portraits. Select pieces have appeared with oddball magazine and decomp journal. Her poems are available across a variety of print and online publications. Find more on Instagram @rebeleigh92.