Poems

Pink

Green

Figurine Man

Jacob Bride sets his mug of coffee down on the side table, and sits himself down in the rocking chair on his back porch. He looks out at the open desert. Takes a big smell of the fine dirt in the air. From the side table, he picks up his sharpened knife and a block of basswood. He looks down at his hands as he works, though his mind’s eye is jumping ahead. He whittles off the corners, molding the basswood block into a shape that is curved, organic, reminiscent of something living.

From out of the wood, Bride uncovers a pair of tall pointed ears, simple pyramids for now. He works away at the negative spaces, which in the process forms a back, a chest, four legs, a belly, a tail. He approaches the head more carefully, finishing out the beginnings of her portraiture with a cranium and a snout.

With the rough shapes done, Bride retrieves his glasses from the side table. In doing so, he also remembers his coffee, and has a long drink of it now that it has gone from piping hot to warm.

Glasses on, Bride holds the wood closer to his eye level, and leans in and around the work as necessary. He carves out the insides of the tall ears, each one’s inner surface smooth, each one’s outer surface patterned as hair, the remaining wood at the ears paper-thin yet appearing as sturdy as the blocky pyramids had been. The ears stand upright, the inner-ears facing forward, listening. He carves her eyes, appraising. He carves her nose, nostrils flared. He etches out the details of her tall, attentive posture.

Bride sets the figurine on the side table. She stands looking at something far off, sensing.