Center-right: wings invisible, pinned like buttoned
fronts of jackets around a rigid waxdrop body;
small-clawed feet fixed or glued or stapled straight,
perch-ready, pointing out the painting’s south-left
corner, down past the wrist. Human death delivered
formaldehyde stiffness, at the cost of first death’s stillness,
between some hand’s thumb and dull-white
forefinger, against the background beige, but

the show lights and the painter’s soft-edged strokes
bring the simple, broken, body back some life, leave it
glowing, almost princely. In chiaroscuro blue, gem-like,
lambent; and the golden glint of gallery lamps
returns something, not quite but almost sunlight,
to the soil-black shimmer in the single open eye.