Unfeeling Fortunato

Hanging over the side of the pedestal,
So many folds and stubbly overlaps,
Bumps that you didn’t ask for, ink that you did,
A porous sack filled with purpose,
Sloppy work around a noisy heart.

Skin spills past, too slick to get a grip
Streaks of 3D, red and blue
Erupt in a tragic swell,
And added to that, they talk too;
Bodies are so grotesque,
the sticky memory of them.

Yards away, the cast is chipped away for
A hollow dream draped in satin marble,
Statues ask for almost nothing except,
“Look at me, sometimes”
And “Stop me from falling”;
I break both promises out of respect.

Retract one clammy breath after the other,
the porous sack sewn into plaster,
Soul and another excess trickles from the toe;
The body is shallow until in acceptance it rots,
Venus is soft before she’s buried in rocks, Fortunato.

Artwork by Auguste Rodin "The Thinker"