Susanna Galbraith: ‘ekphrasis’ and ‘nude self portrait, crouching’

nude self portrait, crouching

there is a white page and a man sits within its bounds,

a knee pressed to the right edge

a hand that would be pushing left

if it weren’t invisible.

being inside brackets changes the difference between pushing and holding.


the invisible hand never had any fingers

the invisible hand was never there

but its loss is everywhere

suckling the definition of those toes.


seeing what’s there is sometimes too hard when you know

the body has leaks

opening at the wrist like an oboe, lipless and mute,

therefore no longer quite an object

but more like two branches diverging.


another sky fills the body like a drowned glass

the top of the head is also full of holes

but the flicked impossibility of hair is a distraction.

everyday I renew a contentedness to not really know where the bone starts.


not knowing is sometimes like bathing,

not moving enough to be swimming,

just permitting the water

to fill where it might


and holding a bubble loosely in your mouth.


but this is not floating

this is crouching

and the throb of realising


the invisible hand is the hand that’s been drawing

and everything that’s happened has been watched,

what started with the eye of a toe,

limbs put on like seatbelts

and no support but the possibility of nothing at all

ekphrasis, wikipedia

one tries to relate to another more directly , by name to call , tries to , out , in doing so , to speak , (to not always be able) . for example , the word comes in one medium , virtually a life of its own , brilliant , subject , illuminative , certainly . given the right circumstances , any art may describe any other – art – yet it is the spirit we are concerned about . the distorted faces in a crowd . all examples