Blotter Figure (Standing Still) Addresses Peter Crutch
      in response to the figure of the same name by Juan Muñoz

You’ve been staring at me ever since
I arrived— all that swaddled bubble-wrap,
photographers, the porters with the trolley,
the final repositioning of my stick.

And how, you might ask, do I know this?
Please, don’t try to imagine my eyes—
Don’t fantasise your hand roaming
my head, feeling for bones and hollows.

Take this fold of mask as you see it
without the words nose, mouth or cheeks
on your tongue. (And not tongue either.)
Not even ears or eyebrows. Forget face.

I know who I am without needing to see
my welted legs or my pleated feet,
wide, webbed, spread on this squat plinth.
They hold me perfectly, day in, day out.

You should have seen us in New York
at Marion’s. Five of us in an empty room.
One, like Juan himself, a foot on the wall,
held a spinning globe in his hands.

We held the space like warriors.
Is my body underneath a suit of armour?
No, Peter. There is no under, under here.
There is no over, over there, either.

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