After Michelangelo’s The Deposition
Witnessing il Divino,
I recall old ocular theory—
how light and vision are created
by the eye of the viewer, also how
a friend once claimed we exist
because we’re loved; I’m thinking
it isn’t Christ whom I love
despite his form polished
to a piteous gleam; instead
it’s the unfinished—the features
of rough apostles, bending
under faith, having witnessed
the artist’s response to veins
in Carrara marble; it is
Buonarroti’s assistants
collecting discarded limbs;
it is this incongruous girl
observing votives
in Santa Maria del Fiore;
it is three women in pilled black
who traveled to witness
the wonder; it’s the lines
in all their faces, the spark
of God in their eyes.
