ERASE, START AGAIN. Define here, don’t excavate:
all hint of Asiatic, Ashkenazic, de-race.
Now as ruler, command a more definite line.
Our face, go full Caliban, with docile hostility,
though urban-dwelling expressions, I think,
can tend crueler. More woolly with the hair
for summer’s humidity, and do pull or stretch
features from schematic ideal, or abandon
any hope of apprehending the subject.
One might as well hang the Itumba mask
to which you refer now in broadening the nose
until it looks to whiff all the consequence coming.
Alert both nostrils to odors of burning. For ears,
trace Obama’s, baby elephant’s maybe. Or else any twitchingly
receptive antenna. But hold for an update-
the mouth now hangs open. Cue The Scream
only louder, meaning that much less heard. Re-depict.
Chip away the left front incisor a bit. Lump slightly fuller
that scar on the lip. Higher up, paste a crackle
of bark to the cheek: melanin or melanoma,
regardless oak-dark, more than the crevice of shadow
above it. But why thicken crosshatch under each eye?
Frightful symmetry only so present now and then.
But for skin, one might pour a cinnamon tint
or even, if you’ll dig this, a handful of dirt-
as despite all aspiration, your subject is earth.
Wherefore, to attire, we’ve some solid report.
Subject was seen last in a white oxford shirt.
Subject was last seen in a souvenir hoodie.
Here carte blanche is bodily as chalk on dark asphalt,
so enliven these eyes, before it all comes apart.
Only one trick for this, pull the fringed curtains
low, dim those deep halls to such extent as to start
that vexed to-and-fro-O step softly, ghost, whose torch
self-consumes, uncontrollably sparks. Now,
back to lips: well-nigh chapped, so unlicked.
We’ve known how these kissed, or pretended, and prayed.
Re-depict once more, either corner upturning, the ulterior
quirk suggestive of their practiced deceit. Or Mona Lisa’s
by now beyond ravenous appetite. Let dry just so,
poised in one moment to barge through
that cage. Now there, you see how
both eyes start to follow? God, look.
He would almost speak:
Composite
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