Archive > 2009 > Jan · Feb · Mar · Apr · May · Jun · Jul · Aug · Sep · Oct · Nov

October 2009 · Readings · Previous · Next   PDF

Closer

By C.D. Wright

By C. D. Wright, in Proud Flesh, a book of photographs by Sally Mann, published this month by Aperture and Gagosian Gallery. Wright’s most recent collection of poems, Rising, Falling, Hovering, was published last year by Copper Canyon Press.

Behold a man, the most familiar body outside one’s own (to which one pays less and less attention), as perfect in its imperfections as in its perfections. Immobile at eye level, faceless, speechless, the body of the husband, the momentous nearness of the body like something grafted to something not kin to itself, and yet the graft has taken, the invisible areas seen into, the visible obscured. What is he thinking? What leafs out in the long winter of the mind? With the curve of his back carved in half by an eclipse. Penumbra into which half a world disappears. Or the dark being drawn off, suctioned, just below the navel. Equally vulnerable and virile. How does it feel to go limp over the edge? Sore legs dangled at the sore knees from a rudimentary table like that in a field hospital, a patient from another era? To lie spent as a soldier on an old duvet? Or here, the torso mutating into a crucible of light? Or in such a way, on the firm side, that the light swells the stomach, making it look—despite the testicles pooched out from the rear—almost as if he were with child? Then, the curious banding around the ankles. As though they had once been fettered. Or to languidly recline with the legs aligned so a comparison is all but involuntary—this one robust as the other has begun to falter? But not to wither, not yet. A forearm encloses a rhomboid of indecipherable darkness. His fist comes to rest next to a splotchy totemic chunk of wood. Any unnecessary furnishings removed. An ascetic tension held at borderline lovely. There is no phone. The children—grown and dispersed—cannot call here. The lens absorbs a man’s back that does not resemble a cello, but a man’s back, in its upper middle years. A man’s horsey buttocks, family Equidae. To brace oneself over a table, like so, family Hominidae. To fuse one’s known body to one’s own ghost under a fringed wrap. Copulare. There, in the lower right corner, tiny apparition of a seraphic face. Chemicals that spackle and scumble, lash and lacerate the figure. O Collodion, how could you? And yet the texture of experience remains intact. Do they talk during this procedure? Not much. What time is it? Does it matter? Rockbridge County time. This diminishing day will wed tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. -Only available light, Rockbridge light. The seasons ramble through their routines. The alkaline soil beds under his nails. The Maury wends through him. The scent of the woods clings to the hair, the skin. Nevertheless the scene brings to mind a classic cold-water atelier in a protracted raw period. A stove that needs constant banking. Dogs spoked around its hot belly. By day, recurrent flashing of wings past the windows. There is so much glass. Some fly full-throttle, hit and drop with a barely audible, sickening thud. The barrier of the medium conspicuous and at last insignificant. So used are they to one another. The frame does not concern us because we are brought near enough to imagine calibrating our own breath to theirs. The frame tautly composed yet not claustrophobic. Instead, resolutely inward-moving. The mechanical activity scarcely noted. Like something grafted. . . . This time spent together doing this, photographing, being photographed. They postpone the ending. As if every second counted though not every second is on a par. They are on a continuum. No other body will do. He is not a figure. This is not a life study but a chronicle of them. They are in this together. They are in this for the long haul. They haul. Food is brought in. Firewood. Bills paid. Silverware drains. The trees endow the house with a zone of seclusion. The horses need them. The dogs give more than they are given (dogs being lavish in the ways of love). The instrument is cold. Boxy. Cranky. Harsh, even. But the care with which it is leveled on this foot, the toes hammering, those weird twin ovals in the background, handles to a cabinet of effects. This flank, where the wasting has scoured the thigh, buttock. David, Michelangelo’s David, an idealization of course. Inhuman. The penis in this one, so docile. It becomes the receptive organ. (Because he does not need to withhold.) What time is it? What difference? They are on a continuum. Mayflies have mere hours to get themselves out of the mud, mate, and die. These two have until the end of hours. (Time and the day have buried the bell.) The somnambulist lunges into the rectangularly lit field of rug. Stairs punish the hindlimb. But a stallion could be saddled in half sleep. In fly season. Gently so he does not start. There is no other exit. No ordinal values to assign. Only morning with its glories. Only evening with its long tapers and simple suppers. If he were to tell her he was beginning to feel a draft, would she cover him? Or say, Wait, I am almost done. Don’t move. Equally virile and vulnerable. Or would they just stop now; go outside and watch everything blow around. Then there would be no record of them. They were never here. But would he ever complain? Never. Does he ever doze off? Hover above himself? From some incorruptible perch. Between here and there. Gaze into a separate space? Abandon them? Evanesce? During this procedure. When one is no longer emerging, one is vanishing. The dream of withdrawal dissolves in the dream of belonging. Whether or not one loathes this paradox, it is ungrudgingly carried out. The aphrodisiac of silence. Sprawled on the woven floor there. It is Storyville. He is “the fallen one.” She is Bellocq, disinterested, except in the outcome. Then you can get dressed. Then there is some talk, not a lot. A rod of intense light enters or exits the head. Trust is a given. Once earned. This has been going on a long time, these sessions, the radio tuned to NPR. Since the other election, the one tantamount to a coup. The fields green and flowing, then brown and stubbled. Dusted white once or twice. Less every year. The house lulled under an afternoon moon. Sound of a hose being dragged; a barrow with a heavy load. Smell of tack. Smell of ether. Drifting out toward the river. He said he could smell it on his tractor. They become reclusive. Her especially. He does the shopping. He goes to an office. It is just the two of them now. Certain sensations have to be attended, an itch that intensifies, an ache that gets louder. The disposition of him, whose face we don’t see. A length of frayed material is hung up. Unbleached muslin or an old tablecloth. Now stand behind that. Within hearing of a branch cracking. Crows cawing. Always crows. Distant drone of machinery. An old tree has fallen. It will burn through the months in this room. The light stretched, curved, squared off. The contrasts strictly regulated. Stippling of the backs of the legs. Torn strips. Craqueleur. Shredding. Blackened slurry in the corner of the frame. She did that. The sorcerer. He is worn smooth, marmoreal. Tomorrow he goes into town, to lawyer. But he is standing now. He is Vulcan. Hephaestus. (Who had a bum leg.) He is at his forge. He is Fire. He is the only god on the Mount with a job. Who works with his hands. If the room were amplified, it would tick and respirate as walls and windows disappeared. Mattress fit for a prison cot. A bowl made by a friend, a Russian tea glass, an aerial of a television disguised as blackdrop, and them. A man beheld. It goeth to the quick. To the quick. Has your arm gone to sleep? Stripped of activity. An overflowingness of being. He knows we are looking. When he faces the window, the rain obscures the field. Perhaps nothing is out there. Else, the world, sweet and wet, swarming with color. A darkling hand hovers above its opposite shoulder. The image of the back, a canvas for scratches made by the photographer. All backs are lonely. All backs existentially apart. The way they knew it would be. And yet “empirically personal,” the words retrieved unacknowledged. Likewise these, “big strong seeing.” How is it their privacy is not penetrated by the audacity of our stare? How is it that these frames add up to an enactment, not a series of stills of him? Let’s all sit down in our broken chairs with our broken hearts in our laps and clap. Anticipation of movement, of a sudden shift. The body’s betrayal, dignified by its bearing. Just some window light, some cloth, a worktable, a man lying quietly, or standing with his foot on a stool. The mystery, thought the optimist’s daughter, in how little we know of other people is no greater than the mystery of how much. The converse is also true. Do you need to stretch now? Can you open your legs more? Can you get closer to the edge and recline in the air a little more? Can you stay on that brink? Were you dreaming again? Of being choked off? Limb by limb? If she knew what he was thinking, would she turn away? Would regret trickle in, shame maybe? A spill of unsaids? Speculate, as you will, on the meaning, but not the upshot. Every frame, evidence of deep true control. Clear, beautiful, frozen. His face, finally. Painfree. Like a patient etherized upon a table. Would she turn away? Never.

22 23 24

SEE ALSO: Men; Photographers' models; Physiology

Previous · Next