208
PARTISAN REVIEW
* * *
Something else. Not flesh, not stone, not wax, not metal–
something else. From everything seen-the unseen. The face in
front of me never existed. What is here doesn't exist. Is of some
other substance.
The distinctive features: incomparableness and the impossibil–
ity of acclimation. Can't be torn away . Can't become accustomed.
A purely external (and thus significant) impenetrability.
Inseparability. Incorruptibility . You can't cut it with a knife, can't
cleave it with an axe. The face of the deceased is not a mask , but
elemental cast.
All ends have come together. A focus.
Once and forever.
Closest of all, of course, is wax, but still-wax doesn't come
close.
What reply to the body that lies here?
Refusal.
* * *
I look at the hand and I know-it can't be raised. How much
life weighs we know-but this isn't life, it ' s death . The hand isn't
filled with lead, but with death . The pure weight of death. All of
death in every finger. One would have to raise all of death . That's
why it can't be raised .
This-is with the eyes, while beneath the lips :
First of all : kisses won't get through. Not the lips (life) on the
brow (death), but the brow (death) on the lips (life) . Not, I
warm-but he chills. Impenetrability? Heat-resistance . Heat–
resistance? Cold-radiation . I shall stand here and warm, and he'll lie
there and chill . Such cold doesn't exist in nature. Nor this density.
Because this doesn ' t exist in nature at all. In another nature .
Heatable : metal , wax , stone , everything. Everything responds.
Grows warm.
The brow-refuses.
* * *
Vanya G-v-I reinstate you back to life.
Firstly, the narrowness. Narrow cheek bones, narrow lips, nar–
row shoulders, narrow hands . Narrow and therefore-not crowded.
Not crowded, therefore-joyous.
The lightness of the hair on the brow and, passing over the
