Joshua Coben

Bust

Ham-fisted time’s to blame for all my flaws:

that maker who once toiled to chip me free

of shapeless stone now lets the chisel slip,

impatient to have done with me. His eye

is off: he tonsures me and roughs my cheek.

Wherever I walk, I show his shoddy work

and call him fraud, defying him to gouge

my tongue or pound my wits to froth.

                                                                     Mother

                                                          of life, before I break like chalk and weep

with dust, sculpt me a bust impervious

to blast and fault, polish me to a gloss

that cudgels cannot craze, and I will sip

the dross of age through my sole chink—a smile—

to toast the hammer poised to strike my face. 

Joshua Coben is the author of two books of poetry, Maker of Shadows (Texas Review Press, 2010), winner of the X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize, and Night Chaser (David Robert Books, 2020), a finalist for the Vassar Miller Prize, the New American Poetry Prize, and the Donald Justice Poetry Prize.