Skull Study
Asma Al-Masyabi
Skewed angles of skull attempted in pencil
lead correcting lead in an echo
of what underlies and holds in lines
that never meet the way that shadow
touches bone. The tilt the edges etched
in facsimile of how we hold caverns without darkness.
My most common failure the outline of darkness
in the daggered tip of nose between the penciled
sill of eye holes their particular echo
as if leaning, sanded, weather-worn lines
that lead gentle into themselves and soft shadows
that ridge in the hills above teeth, etching
the burial of roots, consequences in the etches
of uneven shading in the transitions of darkness
slipping features to slope uneven. My pencil
hesitant yet drawn to consider the echo
of human in what is dead or in the lines
like seams that are thumbed to look like the shadow
of death. I am held by the cheek bone’s shadow
curling like a ring, like a lisp that aches to etch
lovingly, if only I could trace the darkness
that harbors in that gap the width of a pencil
and with this I confess I have started to see the shadow
of pale plates in each face, their difficult lines
shifting. As you smile know I imagine the ever lifting line
our naked jaws greet naturally in marbled shadow
grinning of a distant joy. Turn your chin, and I etch
sharp jolt of jaw into memory, the triangle of darkness
it impresses in the curve of your neck, aching for a pencil
to measure distance from angle to angle echoing
the skin-stripped surface, the colorless echo
that hardens beneath us. I find in the lines
hidden in you a breathless sort of watching shadow
cracked overlapping in rounded clarity the small etches
that tighten in on themselves as if holding your darkness
tightly. It seems obscene, to empty you of you in pencil
strokes while light still lines your skin.
The echoing of hours in darkness. Of practicing hollow.
In penciling the etched puzzle until it is all that remains.
ASMA AL-MASYABI is a poet, writer, and visual artist. She is a ruth weiss Foundation Emerging Poet Award winner. Her writing can be found in The Cincinnati Review, Subnivean, The Santa Clara Review, and more. She’s currently pursuing a degree in creative writing at the University of Colorado Denver.
