Michael Cope

Side by side

Max Raysman, Engraver

Mr Raysman’s hands are a knot of hard rope,
the old skin stretched tight over bulging joints.
Milky eyes beneath the cloth cap hide behind
lenses. He reads the brief one letter at a time
through his spectacles and pebble loupe.
Seventy something years he’s cut the bright lines
into the metal. The patterns flow in his hands –
scrolls and roses, lettering, Roman and cursive,
names and dates cut in trophies and the insides
of wedding rings, posies for nine-carat tie-pins,
sometimes the foliage on a gent’s signet ring
deep-cut to bring the leaves to life. Max is dapper
with a trimmed moustache. His persistence is nothing
to make a fuss over. He keeps his tools sharp.

He’s short, maybe five two, dressed six decades
out of date in a cardigan and flannel slacks.
He always undercharges. You have to bargain
with him to pay for what the work’s worth.
“Twenty Rands,” he says. “Are you sure?
It seems too low. How long did it take you?”
He huffs. “All right, make it thirty.” Over years
his hands have turned wooden like the handles
of the burins they hold. ‘Stickles’ he calls them –
they have rounded hafts a bit bigger than walnuts –
and his hand, as it rattles the key on the gate,
is cupped arthritically to fit that shape.
The left’s more lithe. It hasn’t worked as hard,
but the patterns move through the right. It must go on.