Six Poems

Casualty

My manikin model,
for art purposes
articulated
ankle knee and neck,
lies on my desk
half on his back
one arm curiously
stretched into the air
his elbow bent backwards
his featureless face
towards the sky
as though beseeching.

Could a genuine corpse
have this rigidity,
or would its elbow
long ago have
dropped to the ground
alongside the body?
...