Negative Space, by Jay Jacoby

Reclining Figure, by Henry Moore (UK) 1935-1936

Negative Space
                                 
“Sculpture is the science of the hollow and the bump.” Rodin

“Sculpture is the science of the hollow and the bump,” Rodin
Look how he has made me
 
without edges
flowing from 
with 
in 
on 
out
of the earth
like streams 
hills and hollows
like the tree from which I came
hewn shaped scraped
                                                    
Look at the nothing
that is my core
the empty hole 
around 
between
that is
hunger 
and possibility
You are drawn from 
the whole to the hole
the form is only the shell 
holding the hole 
 
Look at how he has made us

​Jay Jacoby

Jay Jacoby is a happily retired English professor having taught for most of his career at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.  He now lives in the Western North Carolina mountains and is able to focus  energies on creative writing.  His writing has appeared in several journals and he has four new poems coming out soon in an anthology, Barricaded Bards: Poems from the Pandemic (March 2021, ArsPoetica, an imprint of Pisgah Press, LLC) .