I don’t love what I love,
I become what I love.
I cannot become my beloved;
I don’t think copying the flesh
Is the highest form of love,
Unless an Elvis impersonator
Who loves Elvis is real love.
But I don’t think it is.
But I can write
In the style, pre-Raphaelite.
I can be sad
In her style, Ligiea’s style, and be just as mad.
I think about faces,
How almost everyone
Has pretty eyes. Pretty eyes
Are common—a pair of beautiful eyes
Can live in an ugly face.
The architecture of the face:
The shape and size of the forehead,
The architecture of jaw, chin,
The position of the ears, the brows:
These determine the beauty of a face.
Jaw and forehead make up the hardware—
Eyes, nose, and mouth, the software
Of the face. A perfect nose can adorn
An ugly face, and beautiful lips, too.
I fell in love with a strong jaw, once.
It was large and unique. It was like a god’s,
Noble and strong; and the rest
Of her features, in the plan of the face,
Were gently-proportioned and modest;
A nose not large, nor too small—
A perfect shape, the same with eyes and lips;
And the forehead was smooth and regular,
Leaving her classically noble chin,
With the heft of ancient statuary,
Proud, not receding—the exaggerated
Opposite—to be her face’s character.
Had any other features been large
Too, this would have tipped the whole face
Into freakishness. The chin alone
Stood out; not one in a million
Has a chin this strong, a solid feature
Expected more in a man—but, on her,
Startlingly unique and handsome,
A wonderful compliment to the lips.
This rarity in a face is more valuable
Than all the art in the world; her singular
Physical uniqueness made it hard
Not to love her, once I fell. Everything else
Was secondary: she was bad-tempered,
Sneeringly sarcastic, plain in thought,
Pessimistic, depressed, married. Yet all these
Were eclipsed by the classical chin—
Once pondered, it was difficult to forget.
See this rare sketch in this old, crumbling volume of sin?
A god teaches the mortal how the mortal should be.
A god, she was, in part, gliding, askance of me—
Hers, the countenance, demure, pre-Raphaelite—
Lending a structure to the clothes and the poetry.