Cover Art: Jericho Brown’s The New Testament On Choosing Who Will Be Front Page News

Cover Art: Jericho Brown’s The New Testament

On Choosing Who Will Be Front Page News

These are my friends
See how they glisten
See this one shine
How he smiles
In the light
My friend!
My faithful friend!

                                Stephen Sondheim

Let’s cover it yes and some will say

ok with what and still others will say

what would you do how far

would you go (go and do

                they’d say that and they’d add go

                even though it wasn’t going

anywhere) a thing

like that a man two men one

sitting one standing one with a straight

razor one with a throat exposed for

a shave and it starts out meek

not struggling like any fragility really

and then just released down into

the nest a shell of a thing a blob

of a thing that has simply

from our perspective

nothing of the God

nothing of the image

nothing but sack and albumen

and its complete and utter vulnerability

that’s it that’s what its got

and there’s some as would lie

down and heat and heat and heat

until the egg is a being and then

there’s some that would eat

and eat and eat until that being

is free from being

a being.  There’s always the place

you come to that remains gated

and there’s no gong on together

unless there’s the moment of one hand

going out to the other hand and it’s open

and it says let’s go let’s go

together and the gate waits to be

pushed or pulled depending on

the direction maybe and you reader you have

to decide for yourself who you are

(and you’ll be both I assure you)

at the moment: the goer or the comer

and it’s not for life it’s just this one

time, and the hand that’s been taken

out of it’s pocket for you is still

in the middle of the air and what pray

are you going to decide? Did

the models who sat for Leon

Bonnat’s Le Barbier negre a Suez

get to choose who would sit

and who would wield  

the razor?  Maybe

the first thing you’re supposed to

see is the vulnerability of the throat

and then the half-closed eyes of the man

taking the shave, it’s his whole body

we see, he’s sitting on the floor

his knees make the bowl of a boat

from bow to stern and the barber

is his sail and he is faceless

and his left hand is drawing

the taught cheek

skin taut along the edge

of the eye the tip of the ear the temple

he covers all those weak spots with

the ease of vulnerability taken

charge of but doesn’t keep

watch on.  It’s almost as though

the other objects in the room—a lamp, brass

maybe on the wall and a tallish

woven basket for towels and a smoky

brazier and a matt aside from

the men it’s the matt I see and maybe

at the appointed times it’s got to be

knees and lips and forehead—

are there to make you less

(less shy) or more (more brave)

because the men are beautiful they are

doing the job of taking and of getting

of coming in rough and then

having it all cut away with a

straight razor—its loving—it’s the most

intimate kind

of loving because just there just

in the light is that jugular and one move-

ment away and a less confident

barber would slip

—but see—and I ask

is the expression in the face the one being

shaved is that was is

unplumbable or is it

trust or could be drugged but no

he’d be flat on the matt here he holds

his feet and adjusts the sail

of his knees

and each…well maybe this is where

the story has it’s pause

its inlet anchor takes

its leave before going back

out into the sun

clean

but don’t forget the hand it’s there

in the air still

it’s asking will you

take it before it goes back into the holster

of its pocket still loaded or will you

tilt your head to one side

when the bird begins

to sing the one that was an egg

or made an egg

moments or months or years ago