‘ She who was the helmet maker's once beautiful wife'
–a bronze by Rodin

You could miss her
as the crowd pushes on
towards the life-size Burghers of Calais ,
the maquette on a small white table

She would not have let him mould her
like this, struggling to hide her nakedness,
her scrawny neck, flattened drained-dry dugs
cords of sinew knotted in her arms.

How strong she was, carrying water
slopping the sides of a metal bowl
and cloths to wipe this husband's face
as he beat and shaped.
No image of him ingrained with metal
face sculpted by fire, pitted by random sparks
thrown out from the orange flames,
his skinned knuckles tight around the hammer.

One day as he dragged the cloth across his eyes
did her beautiful face shatter on the water's surface?
Did he glimpse the neck skin gathering,
the shrinking of the eyes inside the swelling lids?

How little separates us, she and I,
across the darkness of time –
a sliver of skin
a slice of bone.