Slantwise View of Simeon Solomon

Look left—the sideways gaze, your always-silent god:

the women manly, men as spirit-muse.

We see you here, a turbaned sultan with a secret, untold.

Orientalized master, all brocade and languor, we laud

your once-and-might-have-been, the ruse.

A Libra loves his costume: Beauty, the always-silent god.

A pasha of avoidance, you make of yourself your mold,

unlike your self-portraits where you refuse

to look away. Here, you are a sultan with a secret yet untold.

What do photographers know of men unshod

by poverty, of men whose loves have nothing left to lose?

A Jew knows the sideways gazes of an always-silent god.

Your face under your hand, the graphite’s grey turns gold:

in one, your eyes are music; in another, choose

a downward shame, no sultan in a turban, fate untold.

“Saw Simeon Solomon without shoes today—how odd,”

Rossetti said, or did he say “how sad”? The camera is a bruise.

The sideways gaze can’t meet the always-silent god.

The sultan in a turban looks away. Too much is told.

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BRYN GRIBBEN is an instructor of English at Seattle University. Creative non-fiction managing editor for Big Fiction Magazine. Nominated for Pushcart Prize in 2019.