Within the Byzantine room probably the most
Stunning cabochon is the lacking one.
Clear, like the pinnacle of Brian Boru’s harp.
I imagined myself consuming and consuming
From ewers—that they had actual respect
For rock crystal again then.
Smears of the human on all glass,
Little one peak, clouds of breath.
Reliquary Arm of Saint Valentine,
Silver, with a sapphire on one finger,
Tough, uneven,
And then you definitely come round to the opposite
Aspect and see a dungeon in his forearm,
Sprung open—we’re free.
Subsequent to it, the reliquary of Mary
Magdalene’s tooth, eliminated to fill
Some cavity. In all places the praying
Palms are lacking from their statues,
Stolen.
Now flip to the Pietà With Donors.
“Limestone with traces of polychromy.”
Grapes fall from Christ’s open wound.
A person holds his single stiffened sheet
Of seaweed hair. His mom’s mouth
Blackened with centuries of disbelief,
Nonbelief, she didn’t imagine it so exhausting
He got here again to her. The cried-out
Eyes are alive, like his brow
On the Cloisters. The tuck in his loincloth
Will be completely considered,
His foot solely imagined. The entire
Custom, on this place, is on show.
The lectern eagle with break up beak,
To talk. Saint John on Patmos
Receives the revelation, crimson meat
Within the mouth of the useless dragon.
On both facet of Christ, the donors
Smile: Pons and Armand, brothers.
This needed to occur, they agreed,
It’s ours, and positioned him in a personal
Chapel. There’s a deep cavern
Inside Pons’s bent knee the place
One thing, clear as cabochons,
Was, was once. The water in residing
Limbs that stands us up, that kneels
Us down, that drapes us over Mary’s
Lap like a necklace. Throughout,
There have been unidentified stones
In these chalices that I, unbeliever,
May simply identify. And I too
Was sporting one thing that I—
Historic, uncorrupted,
Uncovered—had made!
