Walt Whitman Ekphrastic

I never look at it. I always skip past
the woodcut portrait in Leaves of Grass. 
 
I think it’s a woodcut, but I can’t say.
I’m typing into a blank laptop screen.
 
Nor do I know what edition. Or what year.
I think he’s got a hat on and his arms are crossed.
He may also be balding. I’m not sure.
 
Maybe a funky belt hangs loose around
his middle aged waist. And out there on the
 
edges I imagine there are small ink dots,
sort of fading around the lines. I don’t know
 
if there are wrinkles around his eyes. And
even if there were, I think they’d only be
 
suggested. Maybe his arms are open wide,
hat in hand, standing like my grandfather
 
who worked a linotype machine in lower
Manhattan. I wish I could show you both
this device I’m working on. The way
 
it answers all these questions, but I’m not
going to Google. Instead, I imagine you posing
 
and now someone is asking you to hold still
and you, Walt Whitman, are looking at us.

---

Henry Crawford is a poet whose work has appeared in several journals and online publications including Boulevard, Copper Nickel, Folio, Borderline Press and The Offbeat. He was a 2016 Pushcart nominee. His first collection of poetry, American Software, was published in 2017 by CW Books. His website is HenryCrawfordPoetry.com; YouTube: Henry Crawford Poetry