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Poetry of Issue #7        Page 42

TWO SCULPTURES
           (for my mother)

On the shelf above my bed, three
glazed-ceramic boys' heads huddle
together, looking down ­ perhaps
they are holding a frog they caught,
terrified at their innocent cruelty, or
it may be they are holding an egg
just hatching ­ surely it is only
something alive can conjure this
rapt triple gaze and hold it as
our mother molds the clay.

On the shelf above the boys, three
wooden musician frogs carved and
painted by an unknown Indonesian
hand, a gift long ago from a friend ­
a drummer, a piper, and a pot-bellied
basso profundo ­ their silent music
flows down around the three boys.

It is the traces of the sculptors'
hands, the living embodiment
of work, that makes me keep
these to look at again and again.

  Chris Brandt