NICOLAAS TULP, 1635
Because, each week, he has entered the body,
its torso, freshly sanitized, its legs and arteries,
the rose curve on the underchin executed so deftly
by the hangmanâs rope; because he has entered
the forearm and cortex, the lobes and hidden
vortices, deeper, then deeper, until what remainsâ
shallow, undissected fleshâseems simple lines,
their one dimension shadowless;
and because he is tired and has been himself
a subject,
Tulp crumples his page, then tries again
to sketch a caged orangutan. Placid, insouciant,
the animal slips its shallow glances upward,
downward, from the white-ruffed shape shaping it
to the lap and simple page, as the first lines quicken
and a ratted brow begins. There, a nostril,
and there, a shadowing, a depth that plumps
the cheek pouch, the fingerâs wrinkled
vortices. Slumped at their separate walls, neither
meets the otherâs eyes,
although, equally, each
completes the circling gazeâman to beast to page
to man: two pelt-and-pipesmoke-scented curves,
dimensionless, mammalian. Tick by tick
the minutes pass, page by crumpled page.
Beyond the door, caws and yelps and the clack
of carriage wheels . . . and still they sit,
Tulp, the ape, content to see the shapes
theyâve knownâor felt, or sensed, or turned withinâ
sloughed in husks across the straw.
Fragments from Venice:
Albrecht Dürer
You write for news and Venetian vellum.
â¢
I answer: From the sea today a mystery:
proportionâs carapaced nightmare: lobster.
â¢
You write for burnt glass.
â¢
I answer: When tides cross San Marcoâs cobbles,
bare-shouldered women, bare-shouldered girls,
walk planks to the dark cathedral.
â¢
Herr Willibald, my French mantle greets you!
My plumes and misgivings greet you!
Blue-black near the boiling vat, my carapaced neighbor
greets you! (Since dusk, his thin-stalked eyes, like sunflowers,
have tracked my orbiting candle.)
â¢
You write that my altarpiece
cups in its wings our destinies.
â¢
I answer: In one-point perspective, all lines converge
in a dot of sun far out on the earthâs horizon.
â¢
I answer: Nightfall makes centaurs of the gondoliers.
â¢
I answer: Afloat through the inns, a second perspective
transposes the reign of earth and sun, placing
us
at the vanishing point.
â¢
You write that stubble on the winter fields
supports, through frost, a second field.
â¢
I answer: When tides withdraw there are birthmarks
on the cobbles. And on the girlsâ satin slippers
age-rings of silt.
â¢
You have seen, secondhand, the centaurs.
â¢
I have seen the lobster redden,
then rise like a sun through the boiling water.
â¢
Immortalityâs sign? you ask me. That slow-gaited sea change?
That languorous rising?
â¢
I have also seen a comet cross the sky.
From the Sea of Tranquillity
Item: After the hopping and gathering,
in that flat, crepuscular light, Armstrong
stroked to the moonâs crisp dust, it is said,
Albrecht Dürerâs initials, first the Aâs wide table,
then beneath it, the slumped, dependable D,
the image sinking slowly through that waterless sea,
named less for tides than resemblances.
â¢
Item: In the year 1471, in the sixth hour
of Saint Prudentiaâs Day, Albrecht Dürer was born,
the moon afloat in Geminiâs house, and far to the east
Leo rising; an alliance that promised, with travel
and wealth, a slender physiqueâso slender, in fact,
Dürer slipped from it daily, as, gripped by concentration,
someone elseâs Albrecht drew a stylus down the grain.
â¢
Item: Kicked up through the moonâs pale dust, a boot
creates not a scattering but a wave, particles joined
in a singular motion, faithful to the shape
of displacement. Such is the loss of atmosphere,
although aura remains, and time. Think of two men,
each at his milky page, thirst and the
Because, each week, he has entered the body,
its torso, freshly sanitized, its legs and arteries,
the rose curve on the underchin executed so deftly
by the hangmanâs rope; because he has entered
the forearm and cortex, the lobes and hidden
vortices, deeper, then deeper, until what remainsâ
shallow, undissected fleshâseems simple lines,
their one dimension shadowless;
and because he is tired and has been himself
a subject,
Tulp crumples his page, then tries again
to sketch a caged orangutan. Placid, insouciant,
the animal slips its shallow glances upward,
downward, from the white-ruffed shape shaping it
to the lap and simple page, as the first lines quicken
and a ratted brow begins. There, a nostril,
and there, a shadowing, a depth that plumps
the cheek pouch, the fingerâs wrinkled
vortices. Slumped at their separate walls, neither
meets the otherâs eyes,
although, equally, each
completes the circling gazeâman to beast to page
to man: two pelt-and-pipesmoke-scented curves,
dimensionless, mammalian. Tick by tick
the minutes pass, page by crumpled page.
Beyond the door, caws and yelps and the clack
of carriage wheels . . . and still they sit,
Tulp, the ape, content to see the shapes
theyâve knownâor felt, or sensed, or turned withinâ
sloughed in husks across the straw.
Fragments from Venice:
Albrecht Dürer
You write for news and Venetian vellum.
â¢
I answer: From the sea today a mystery:
proportionâs carapaced nightmare: lobster.
â¢
You write for burnt glass.
â¢
I answer: When tides cross San Marcoâs cobbles,
bare-shouldered women, bare-shouldered girls,
walk planks to the dark cathedral.
â¢
Herr Willibald, my French mantle greets you!
My plumes and misgivings greet you!
Blue-black near the boiling vat, my carapaced neighbor
greets you! (Since dusk, his thin-stalked eyes, like sunflowers,
have tracked my orbiting candle.)
â¢
You write that my altarpiece
cups in its wings our destinies.
â¢
I answer: In one-point perspective, all lines converge
in a dot of sun far out on the earthâs horizon.
â¢
I answer: Nightfall makes centaurs of the gondoliers.
â¢
I answer: Afloat through the inns, a second perspective
transposes the reign of earth and sun, placing
us
at the vanishing point.
â¢
You write that stubble on the winter fields
supports, through frost, a second field.
â¢
I answer: When tides withdraw there are birthmarks
on the cobbles. And on the girlsâ satin slippers
age-rings of silt.
â¢
You have seen, secondhand, the centaurs.
â¢
I have seen the lobster redden,
then rise like a sun through the boiling water.
â¢
Immortalityâs sign? you ask me. That slow-gaited sea change?
That languorous rising?
â¢
I have also seen a comet cross the sky.
From the Sea of Tranquillity
Item: After the hopping and gathering,
in that flat, crepuscular light, Armstrong
stroked to the moonâs crisp dust, it is said,
Albrecht Dürerâs initials, first the Aâs wide table,
then beneath it, the slumped, dependable D,
the image sinking slowly through that waterless sea,
named less for tides than resemblances.
â¢
Item: In the year 1471, in the sixth hour
of Saint Prudentiaâs Day, Albrecht Dürer was born,
the moon afloat in Geminiâs house, and far to the east
Leo rising; an alliance that promised, with travel
and wealth, a slender physiqueâso slender, in fact,
Dürer slipped from it daily, as, gripped by concentration,
someone elseâs Albrecht drew a stylus down the grain.
â¢
Item: Kicked up through the moonâs pale dust, a boot
creates not a scattering but a wave, particles joined
in a singular motion, faithful to the shape
of displacement. Such is the loss of atmosphere,
although aura remains, and time. Think of two men,
each at his milky page, thirst and the
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