"The Sculptor and His Muse"
(Rodin, 1894)
Click the arrow on the audio player to hear Greg Miller read this poem. You can also download the recording or subscribe to Slate's Poetry Podcast on iTunes.
The lithe muse rises from his crotch,
right finger and delicate thumb
poised where I watch
her rise
from his shaft's hidden head,
her left foot rising from his thigh
as from a bath,
falling counterclockwise
head-to-head, their shared wreathlike hair
like Venus shed
or cut from Zeus to be thrown free
until the spinning lines make me see
her large left hand is his also,
she his shoulder
shock-stopped
by that face—least finished,
blinded and turned inward—
those pert, small breasts
the clock's top, where he's dropped:
that giant right hand that's covered
the beard—the mouth—
vomiting and making. What lifts
his muse from the stone scrotal sack
or earth-womb opening between
his knees—earth-wounded—wracked by lack
and surfeit, stone lactary-sheen?
.
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Greg Miller is the author of Iron Wheel(1998), Rib Cage (2001), Mississippi Sudan (2006), and Watch (2009). He is Janice Trimble chair of English at Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss.
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