Beneath Each Mark And Line, The Paper

We only know how to preserve one kind of thing--a dead thing.
Peter Matthison
The Eyelids of Morning

The lines formed by fabric and flesh
become this mind's memories of that body
and no representation, no self-expression at all is needed
to know what that face looks like.

I think I've seen it all before
and knuckle deep inside herself is how I think of her now
even though I don't think that ever probably really happened.

I supposed charcoal the best way to represent,
burned grape vines all smudged across thick gray paper,
an intimation of a suggestion of an impression of those lines
implied by flesh and fabric
and the perfect way to avoid a foolish draftsman’s vow of precision.

So much more comfortable now to remember a concert of smudges,
to see a lazy group of shadow and stroke hung inside a frame
and arranged for archival extremes of storage.