Galleria Bargello, August 2009

"Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks."
-Plutarch

And what of sculpture? I hear the cheers
of the Israelites, the thud of Goliath's
head on the sand echoing in this prison-

turned-museum. David stands as tall as I am
(what giants will I slay?), some supple ideal
of soft flesh in cold bronze, and were it not

for the motionless nature of sculpture,
that forever-fleeting smirk, his young lips
of victory would have whispered,

"No poem is as polished and revered"
or, "Let us see you make something
worthy of a pedestal."

Thin Skinned

Let the body be its own

poem; ink, scars, pock-marked, anything
but decorous. You are indecipherable

enough to keep up with the best
of them. Let the poem be

a cave from which words echo.
Shout and listen to them all

come back like bats, leathery,
blind, hearing their way skyward.

Unwelcome Guest

Melancholy wanders through
your livingroom, a bear

stinking of old things devoured
but not quite digested, her footfalls

heavy on the carpet, a shuffling
gait, snuffling for something you

have strung carefully in the rafters. You,
standing in the kitchen with the dish water

running and the radio on commercial
break, no knives in reach, the diningroom

table still strewn with utensils because
dinner consisted of cold––cold

spaghetti conversation (limp, unpalatable), cold
weather seeping through the uncaulked windows––

you wait for her to stop swatting at that
something, suspended above the sofa, just

out of reach. She is ignoring the din
from the kitchen and the food on dishes

not yet cleared, intent only on what she
can almost reach. She has risen

on two feet, when you decide that
that is close enough, and kill

the radio, turn the tap, her guilt-thick breathing
caught between sudden silences.

Running Stitch

"I cannot remember the last time I gave some-
                                body
                my weight." She says.

Because the body betrays us in its fragile
                                tendencies;
                the kneecap pushed so

slightly out of place, the uncomfortable
                                bend
                almost elegant.

Your dancer limbs locked the wheel-
                                chair wheels
                with a grace we only dreamt

about. Sewn strands and tendons
                                tend to
                atrophy. They can only be

cut, stretched, and re-stitched–anatomical seam-
                                -stressing.
                "I am a canvas now."

The long wait in waiting
                                rooms
                transitioned us to mourning

the loss of your leg. No,
                                not loss–
                it is still there, but caged.