MORGAN LUCAS SCHULDT
ON SEEING LEONARDO'S GROTESQUES
Whelmed by a catalogue of flesh, by faces
chaptered as grotesques,
some lurk-looking, others grim-grinned
or surprised. Hatched & cross-hatched
in red chalk, in black chalk heads all verb; exaggerations
of sag, slope, slack.
Of
clench, furrow, drooze
incessance. Drafts of else & yet. Inexhaustible,
a living-list of body-blame & graceless
growth. Of humored sake
& gape & health & age. The fore-drawn
conspicuous could practiced
onto paper out of the any-heaven hope
to sketch too:
word for the bare
incurable variety of self.