E M E R G I N G P O E T S E R I E S
Carolyn Moore
E M E R G I N G P O E T S E R I E S
Carolyn Moore
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Directions for a Zinc Plate Etching
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MENTOR
Now, a word on timing: equinox. Equinox: best time to balance eggs on their small ends. Take a zinc plate wide as an open book. On each side sketch an egg. Balance them. Have one hatch a gibbous moon, the other, a woman's head. Shape her body as its own chaise longue. Lean her on an elbow right-angle snug to one corner. Leave her moonbathing. It's needle time. Start above the subject in the space we'll call sky. First strokes are the worst, but, say, one cheek escapes slashing. Lift the subject's far thigh to a knee you bend at the plate's dead center. Now scar her toes. Scribble the rest to wait for the bite of acid to trace all you scrape bare. Be warned: the subject wants to live part-woman, part-landscape. You must take control and draw the line. The equator is a useful line for dividing the right hemisphere from the wrong. Make sure the needle follows the intent and all the lines of the sketch. Make sure the plate is ready for the acid to gouge each note in its allotted groove. Take a hard look. Your mistake was drawing a mouth— Yet you left off ears. She's deaf to all you say.
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ETCHING
first sensations the slow float then the membrane then the wall beyond trying these legs finding them insubstantial learning the need to scream without finding a voice voice shaping resin crumbs and curls into words: I am here! I want to live! leave me woman to my raised knee— it shall double as a mountain's summit am I an inkblot doubled at the fold? a woman before her mirror? or conjoined twins— one moonscape, one flesh, joined at summit-knee? these first gouges— see how each leans more moonward than the last? tides do that—not wounds— it was water—rain!— you etched even when you lacked the faith to feel it I name you partner— have I told you how gently you sign? how clear? how sure?
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ARTIST
I have heard his lecture many times and have stopped apologizing. I can accept this much— yolk, chalaza, even shell. Anne Boleyn paid extra for a clean axe. No one should blame the artist for that queen's extra finger and nipple. Yes! Dead. His is the Pain Method. How often have I been the one beneath the thin shield of zinc? When did I ever wait for her to give directions? He speaks of subject, of equinox. I will trust the solstice, the elliptical. I hear the scribbles at her foot sprout pines! I will take a soft look— I will squint, blurring distinctions. I will follow the whole path without getting lost in the forest of detail You are why his sketch had to fail. No!—it gave her the voice to guide me. Surely you are why the listening fell to me, why the tools of our healing crept dumb to my hand. |
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