Portrait Without a Face

114 HADARA BAR-NADAV PORTRAIT WITHOUT A FACE After Francis Bacon’s painting Portrait of George Dyer Talking Again you are ripping off my face, peeling back my scalp, my good hair. How many more pills can I take and still I am dead and you are painting me, peeling back my scalp and hair. How many times will you twist my ear from my head? I am dead and still you are painting me, splicing my nose. My four nostrils heave as you twist my ear from my head. You make me the most beautiful monster: my nose spliced, my four nostrils heave. Most unmerciful master, you unveil me: an unbeautiful monster. You capture and carve muscle from bone, a most unmerciful master. I shave, ride a bicycle, sit naked on a chair while you carve muscle from bone. You hue me to the square, pin me to space, display me while I shave, ride a bicycle, pose naked, the floor transposed into a river of tongues. You hue me to the square, bruise me, splay me shivering below a single bulb. Like a small god you transfigure the floor into a river of tongues that flay me, licking every inch. A lightbulb watches, shivering like a small god. What have you done to my face, Francis. You flay me, lick every inch. Francis, I repeat, but you have forgotten your name. 115 Look what you have you done to us, Francis. Call this limp, love, a lump of men beyond recognition. You have forgotten my name which was George when I still had a face. This love limps. I was a man and was whole once. Before this I was George and still had a face. My startlingly beautiful fleshy self was whole before I died on the bathroom floor. Again you are ripping off my face, my startlingly beautiful flesh. ...