This poem is part of an ongoing series of work entitled Skewings.

‘Skewing’ is the process of removing excess gold leaf from a prepared surface, and skewings are these small pieces which are removed, left over, but probably saved and made into something else. This is how I think of these poems, while the process somewhat describes their process of making. (Skewing also has the sense of something made oblique.) For these I take the technical conservation reports published by the National Gallery, London, and use these as source material from — and through — which I write the poems. Certain phrases are removed and gathered together, and then placed in new relations to one another. This cutting across in some ways echoes the conservation techniques being described, as samples are removed, sectioned, and considered attentively. The conservation reports also contain curious disjunctions, with representations and the represented being conflated and confused: a crack opens up along Christ’s body, for example, or a saint’s face has flaked and become unrecognisable.