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GERRY TURCOTTEPompeiiPlaster of Paris poured into open wounds of earthcreates statues of lives that were:Dogs bound to fountainsmouths open in silent howls;children clutched together waiting for the flood;the vacant eyes of men and womengiving form to pain. This is what death looks likearrested and stilled. This is the shapeof agony. Suspended on the hairlineof terror and unmaking.In Rome the vaults were pried and air rushed into kiss the skin of hundred year-old space,and in the moment's kiss the bonesexploded into dust - unmade by modernarcheology.But here in Pompeii the sculpted touch of sciencehas preserved the still, dark curves of death -a beauty Michaelangelo pursued and Rodinfailed to find - the shape of life unravellinginto disparate threads.WESTERLY, No.2, JUNE, 1989 63