Byzantine Room
· The Atlantic
In the Byzantine room the most
Beautiful cabochon is the missing one.
Clear, like the head of Brian Boru’s harp.
I imagined myself drinking and drinking
From ewers—they had real respect
For rock crystal back then.
Smears of the human on all glass,
Child height, clouds of breath.
Reliquary Arm of Saint Valentine,
Silver, with a sapphire on one finger,
Rough, uneven,
And then you come around to the other
Side and see a dungeon in his forearm,
Sprung open—we are free.
Next to it, the reliquary of Mary
Magdalene’s tooth, removed to fill
Some cavity. Everywhere the praying
Hands are missing from their statues,
Stolen.
Now turn to the Pietà With Donors.
“Limestone with traces of polychromy.”
Grapes fall from Christ’s open wound.
A man holds his single stiffened sheet
Of seaweed hair. His mother’s mouth
Blackened with centuries of disbelief,
Nonbelief, she didn’t believe it so hard
He came back to her. The cried-out
Eyes are alive, like his forehead
At the Cloisters. The tuck in his loincloth
Can be perfectly viewed,
His foot only imagined. The whole
Tradition, in this place, is on display.
The lectern eagle with split beak,
To speak. Saint John on Patmos
Receives the revelation, red meat
In the mouth of the dead dragon.
On either side of Christ, the donors
Smile: Pons and Armand, brothers.
This had to happen, they agreed,
It’s ours, and placed him in a private
Chapel. There is a deep cavern
Inside Pons’s bent knee where
Something, clear as cabochons,
Was, used to be. The water in living
Limbs that stands us up, that kneels
Us down, that drapes us over Mary’s
Lap like a necklace. All around,
There were unidentified stones
In those chalices that I, unbeliever,
Could easily name. And I too
Was wearing something that I—
Ancient, uncorrupted,
Uncovered—had made!
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