After Botticelli
They crowd the blue triangle of the madonna-
these adolescents who are also angels,
eyes staring everywhere but straight ahead,
absorbed in the changeless commerce of their world.
They’re much like us. Some curiosities.
The wings that curve upward from their backs
are such unwieldly limbs—pure ornament-
you’d know that Botticelli made them up
even if you believed in messengers
with human wings. Where are the muscles
to lift an eighty-pound school girl in the air?
And even if the wings are miracles
how do they get their tunics over them?
But wings aside, the angels look like kids.
One gossips, one has hard suspicious eyes,
and several wear the slightly stupid look
most children wear when contemplating babies.
Madonna doesn’t notice them. She’s vague,
thin-faced, eyes drifting downward to the left,
a virgin holding her first child, cradling
him on the tips of her long fragile fingers
as if she isn’t sure where he came from-
so beautiful he almost isn’t flesh.
Thus only Christ, unwavering, looks at us,
his lefthand resting on a pomegranate
that splashes ruby light into the air,
his right hand raised in blessing or a wave
as he forgives us for not being art
or says goodbye since he will live forever.
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