At Chartres

Who wielded the chisel   

at the left portal,   

south porch, the scene   

of Theo chained,   

naked to the waist, leaning in   

to the brutal hand   

of what looks to be   

an even younger boy?   

What man carved stone   

to mimic flesh   

as it would look inside   

the torture of its flensing?   

How he must have held   

the scene in his own   

mind, thought it back   

to the act itself,   

modeling the lines   

with his own limbs   

so he would know   

both how a body   

bends in pain, and how   

a hand extends the flayer’s rake.