Michelangelo's David
Posted: 20 Jun 2019, 12:13
Risking prison, the artist dissected
A corpse to understand the mechanics
of sinew, muscle and tendon .
Body flawless in Cararra marble,
five hundred years he has suffered
the indignity of uncircumcision,
the shepherd king with sling and stone.
In youth. I backed down a giant
or two, could turn the gaze of
fair women in the moonlight.
At sixty six, she forgives my paucity,
the bad knees, my middling paunch.
Her fingers trace the surgical
scars as a palmist would
divine my personal history:
The wife I drove away through
drinking and infidelity, the love
I withheld in ignorance, the children
who don't forgive and withhold
their own children from me.
Beside her in bed, I close my eyes ,wonder
how she can stomach the feel of me;
a body of old stone that smells
too strongly of cigarettes and whiskey.
A corpse to understand the mechanics
of sinew, muscle and tendon .
Body flawless in Cararra marble,
five hundred years he has suffered
the indignity of uncircumcision,
the shepherd king with sling and stone.
In youth. I backed down a giant
or two, could turn the gaze of
fair women in the moonlight.
At sixty six, she forgives my paucity,
the bad knees, my middling paunch.
Her fingers trace the surgical
scars as a palmist would
divine my personal history:
The wife I drove away through
drinking and infidelity, the love
I withheld in ignorance, the children
who don't forgive and withhold
their own children from me.
Beside her in bed, I close my eyes ,wonder
how she can stomach the feel of me;
a body of old stone that smells
too strongly of cigarettes and whiskey.