De Chirico
By Amy Crutchfield
Published 5 August 2025
after Bruce Bond’s “Oval”
Faceless pathos, he said. Heads
huge, smooth, hermetic as eggs.
What I did not before, I saw.
Felt gratitude for his teaching.
But then he spoke of the way a child knows her way out
of the wound in another’s body
which moved me too
until I realised the wound was a vagina
and the body mine.
Did he conceive me as damaged from the outset?
Is a door a perforation?
Is this window a gap?
Not all spaces are empty.
We say love but mean enclosure
we say history but mean injury
you said pleasure but manifest pain.
It is hard to communicate
through these wounds on our faces.
My sex takes a sip of the world
and savours it.
Visit one of the world’s galleries virtually. What impresses, surprises, angers or otherwise intrigues you? Look for what unsettles you. Lean into the discomfort. Write about it.
Amy Crutchfield
#30in30 writing prompt
Poetry is a means to tell truths and seek self-knowledge. For me it is also a form of play and a way to praise the world.
Amy Crutchfield
#30in30 #PoetryMonth
