Working Conditions

Silly sculptor carved his masks
when he was naked –
sometimes wore an apron –
wood chips, paint and glue
and variously edged
and angled scalpels, hammers,
nails and knives – among
his other implements designed

to scrabble out another clue –
all constituted something
like a nemesis. But he would
craft another genesis
no matter what it took. Odd,
the morning after, though:
swaying to and fro upon,
and at, his blocks of heavily

pigmented rock, he’d only
give the mask he’d carved
the night before a single look –

before consigning it to
softly incrementally increasing
thick forgetfulness –
a widening, a hole: the sweet
oblivion of hungry soul.

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