For The Sunday Muse Prompt # 173: Self Portrait with Accordion, (original image by Guido Vedovato) and How To Paint A Self Portrait by Nicole Tinkham.

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First form the silhouette,
press the mound of wet earth thin
till it yields, pliant, to the probing
of the finger and the thumb.

Place the eyes, in the space
between the first and the middle third,
let the ears and the eyes align: 
two eyes, two ears, one mouth

Because Light must fill the inward parts,
and breath is the flimsy thing
that turns earth to feeling flesh;
and the shadows too can be beautiful
in their strange, shifting symmetry

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