Did he think of himself that way,as Hans Holbein the Younger,standing yawning in the mirror?He looked a little longer than usual,then built up his bowl of pearled foamand began to shave.He’d ordered a corpse, it was on its way.Fished from the Rhineand he’d asked for a ripe one.There was a horse, a horseman,a long rope, a corpsehauled onto the riverbank,a running bowline tossed casuallyaround an ankle. The long ropethen tied to the saddle witha gentle word or two for the horse,a dirt-caked Friesian named Samuelwho misunderstood and began galloping.As Hans shaved thoughtfullybeneath each nostril—the horseman left standingat the river—this Samuel ranas only a confused horse couldup the wet stone road,into and through town,dragging the tethered corpsewhich leaked water and bangeddisturbingly on the corners of buildings.It went on for a while.And because we believein poetry and uncanny timing,it was precisely as Hans arriveddownstairs and stepped outonto the front stoopthat this Samuel showed upin a dash and braked—a kind of sideways hockey-stop—which brought the corpsearound nicely (albeit abruptly)to the bare and bony feet ofthe clean-shaven Holbein. Hans Holbein the YoungerThe Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb, 1521–22
Preparing to Paint the Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb
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- June 27, 2023
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“Preparing to Paint the Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb” from Iggy Horse, copyright 2023 by Michael Earl Craig.
Used with permission of the author and Wave Books.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Michael Earl Craig’s most recent book of poems is Iggy Horse (Wave Books, 2023). He’s published poems in various magazines, journals and anthologies, including Poetry, The Believer, The New Yorker and The Best American Poetry (2014 and 2022). A recent Poet Laureate for the state of Montana, he lives in the Shields Valley where he shoes horses for a living.
In Michael Earl Craig’s sixth book, poems resonate with an inscrutable logic that feels excitedly otherworldly and unsettlingly familiar, whether he be writing about the cadaver that Hans Holbein the Younger used as a model, Montana as the “Italy of God,” or the milking rituals in Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow. Not merely absurdist, Iggy Horse is a book that articulates the sadness and strangeness of American life with the poetic observations of true satire.
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