LOST WAX MEDITATION

I haven’t embraced my insomnia—if I were a more ambitious artist, I would haul my butt out of bed and go to my computer at 3 in the morning. I would poke away at some novel, some something. I would plow through the night and voila, that 3rd book, voila, that perfect drawing or map at the end of a month of no sleep.

Instead, I lie back on my pillow and imagine this:

 
Me, the wax model I’ve sculpted, the two faced head—the statue rammed into molding sand, shoved with seven other molds into the old electric stove that serves as a kiln, hot wax melting out of me—lost wax, to make the mold hollow, and then magic—hot bronze in my place.