"My tiger," I call you. "My queen."

Seventeen years, and only partly mine.

As intimate with prelates as with artists,

the strongest woman I've known. Fillide

Melandroni, name that sounds like palaces,

perfumed flowers, a star-strewn sky. How

did a snotty street kid from Siena become

Rome's most expensive courtesan? And

what won't you give me? Almond eyes,

lavish curls, soft breast, and a readiness

to look the Pope himself square in the eye

and not flinch. The others are bagatelle.

 

I'll paint you as St. Catherine, robed in black

velvet and light, and you'll finger my sword,

reddened still, as you gaze out at the viewers

to come. I'll paint you as the Magdalen

—humble Martha at your side—light

tumbling down like a waterfall and choosing

only you. And I'll paint you as Judith, at

the exact moment when Holofernes knows

his neck is being sawed through by a woman

whose competence may be in doubt, but

whose commitment is absolute. The last

images in his brain will be the voluptuous

red of his tent, pearl earring with its tiny

black bow, and your determined face.

 

 

Victorious Cupid

 

 

For such a distinguished and discreet

banker, nothing is impossible, so I

can offer what will both shock and

charm—instant irresistible seduction

of viewer by a dazzling twelve-year-old

boy who gathers all the light to his sweet

flesh.  Unabashed Cecco, bald-ass-naked,

with his stagey wings, clutches his arrows

and prances over the welter of expensive

objects tossed at his feet: violin, astronomical

globe, crown and laurel wreath,  a sea

of white linen. Also, a black and glowing

cuirass (could this be pun?). I threw in tons

of V's to honor my patron—the huge one

on the sheet music, the wide inverted

V of Cupid's parted legs, the wedge of linen

that points V-like straight to his childlike

dick with its pretty red tip, the V of his

left leg, coyly twisted back and resting

on a marble bench. I wanted him to look

mischievous, cheeky, unafraid, offering

his whole bold naked self to the viewer.

(The hand behind his back points to his

buttocks.) I wanted him naughty and hot,

cheek and lip flushed—even his long toes,

his knee and nipple, all eager, reddening.

And the truly sexual moment is when

the dark tip of a wing slides onto his

bare leg, and feather and flesh conjoin.

Let the sophisticated Romans fall, one

by one, under the rough spell of this boy

of the streets, reckless, gorgeous, mine.

 

 

 

 

 

The three men huddle under the shelter

of a red cloak that can't protect and they

know it. Their hands know it too—John's

raised in panic, trying to stave off what

is coming, while the thick fingers of Judas

grasp his master's shoulder, as he leans

close to deliver the kiss, or perhaps to pull

back? Christ's hands are calm, interlaced,

surrendered. And what rules is confusion,

darkness, muscle, steel, crude force, as

three sturdy soldiers, helmeted, armored,

anonymous (only their nose tips show),

form the disciplined wedge that pushes,

relentless, toward Christ. And the fourth

one, onlooker, our man at Gethsemane,

raises a pathetic lantern over the wave

of bodies, his right hand lifting the lamp

as delicately as a painter holds a brush,

his eyes ravenous, missing nothing.

 

 

 

Sensual and, yes, loving, that close

embrace between Cecco and the ram

 

whose curled and rippling horn leans

on the naked boy's wrist and leads

 

our eyes back to his ruddy cheek,

spiraling curls, the proud and eager

 

smile. He looks directly at us, as if

being kissed by a ram is an everyday

 

affair, while the ram gazes at no one

but him, and its two front legs, poised

 

primly together, point to the boy's

scrotum and penis. The light is

 

evening, lush, the trees and bushes

disappearing into the dark—flutter

 

of green leaf or a twig-like stem

distracting us from the tossed fabrics

 

—his red cloak, tumbled bed sheet,

the brown fur pelt on which he leans.

 

As his lower back and buttock touch

fur, Giorgione's ghost slides in to make

 

it a ménage à trois, and the boy's toes

brace themselves on the forest floor.

 

 

 

I allow the cool silver light to slide off the main

figures—two giant grave-diggers with massive

trunks of leg, sweat pouring off their muscles, close

enough for you to smell them. And while the light

hopes for nothing, it will gather you in, accidental

witness to the strange calm that cradles the corpse.

The tidy slit of the throat. Her arm still reaching

out to you beneath the archway of the diggers' legs.

Head thrown back, like Lena's in The Death

of the Virgin, but now face is mask as the silver

light touches chin, nose, eyebrow, almost like

a ritual baptism, and I give Lucy as companion

the old grieving woman from The Beheading

of John—she once again will bow her head and

cover her wrinkled cheeks, but this time she gets

to kneel. And I build a stone archway even larger

than the one in Malta, and I let it rise till it

touches the uppermost corner of canvas, and then

even the laborers look miniscule, and the corpse

tinier still, but the space that belongs to God, not

men, has room at last to breathe, sing, mourn.