Digging In

He went in
near the morning,
and having left his clothes behind,
found the chill meet his skin.

He looked down
and noticed his stomach,
tight, youthful.
This thick thighs twitched with
every step toward his pedestal.

He's admired his hands.
When he was younger,
his parents would look at his hands
and tell him that they would
be his great escape.
He turned them over in the light,
searching for the imperfections.
That's what he was trained to,
to find the cracks and brittle
discolorations.

His arms, bronzed and strong,
splayed before him.

He built his studio to allow the sunlight in
whenever the sun was in the sky.
Right now, just before the day,
the light was golden,
raining down in cascading vellum.
He stood on the pedestal and let
himself be bathed in it.

He picked up his tooth chisel
and began the delicate process
of adding definition.
He scooped from his belly,
building up from a cast he created of his
father.
He rounded the corners of his eyes,
learning from the cast he took from his
mother.
He dug out deep rivulets into his feet and legs
from the cast of his
grandfather.
And finally, his hands he scraped and scratched
and broke and tore
from the cast of his grandmother.
For she too was a sculptor.