A drawing that arrived before I’d begun
I have just finished a drawing and feel robbed — as though from myself I’ve stolen.
Midnight. Most of the country is asleep. I give myself to the quiet and draw.
I shape the crown of a head. Work my way down and a face forms. And because it forms too quickly I wipe my hand across it.
Leave only a trace.
I begin again at the brow. Eye sockets. The dark side of what remains of the nose. Shadows gather around a mouth. With the side of a piece of charcoal my hand swims through hair. I love that movement. Swim down, down, down again. And the face forms.
And I resist.
Wipe it away.
A third time.
Brow. The agony of it. Sockets. Feel the expectation of eyes where as yet there are no eyes.
And the face insists.
And I, who require more effort, more struggle, surrender — submit.
Two lines to make the eyes. A diagonal pulled hard across the temple. A vertical framing the cheek. A curve, almost, to the chin.
I look at it, know it finished and die.
Not because the drawing fails, but because in that moment I know there is nowhere left to go.
I might strengthen the hair, deepen a shadow, work hard one side of the face, but already the eye sees all it needs to see.
The mouth
barely a mouth
eyes
which both suffer and sleep
the brow’s burden
The drawing arrived before I’d even begun, and in arriving it left with the night.