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Corpus Callosum
after seeing an exhibit of Chuck Close’s prints & paintings
by Barbara Southard
Chuck Close said that his differently wired brain
led him to paint portraits in segments
because he had difficulty remembering faces.
I spent hours looking at his progressive proofs
in soft ground, his mezzotints, woodcuts, colors
layered upon colors in the most miraculous way.
It was as if I understood completely
the processes his brain went through.
It was as if I was running around in his head,
leaping from left hemisphere to right,
burrowing into his frontal lobes, exploding with joy.
I wondered if he ever got lost in parking garages,
how he kept on painting after his body failed him–
tying that brush to his hand in just the right way,
how he keeps going deeper and deeper,
bringing us along for the ride. I wondered
how he leapt over the great divide,
how he leapt over frozen limbs—
each grid a carefully constructed miracle.