Doni Tondo, his only painting
other than the sacred ceiling.
Bright egg tempera. Lapis lazuli blue.
Yellow earth of Siena. The reds,
crushed butterfly wings.
At seventeen, slicing bodies at night
in the convent hospital,
learning the shape of flesh
to raise the pulse of marble,
to give Mary arms of mighty strength.
The Grotesque Gallery:
ten artists, ten years,
lying on their backs painting cornucopias,
before pigment dust took their sight.
Around the corner–
the Urbinos’ locked gaze.
Not the best noses or chins.
Hair curling on earlobe like spider legs.
Warts, bloated lids. Stoic marriage.
His profile hides the lost right eye.
But gowns of crimson velvet, ethereal lace.
And behind them their land conquests:
pristine rivers, harbors, hills, forests.
Their portraits, uncorrupted flesh.
On the way out, the she-wolf.
No head, no butt, no breasts
for the founders of Rome to suck.
But the heft of the empire is all there.
Appendages are only appendages
when the trunk is a smooth—
deep purple-red, divine porphyry stone.
First appeared in Sein Und Werden (Summer ’26)