I step into the Gallery 41 of the Uffizi Museum and there on the wall is
The Domi Tondo,” that early Michelangelo-portal to our human hands

in the garden—silky colors folding like the drift of stars over Madonna
and Child, her suitor Joe behind, all three twisted round as if the beast

were undone…she angelic and pure, old Joe paternal, yet sadly aware
as the child squirms with impudence in the credible way children are,

crying I will not be restrained!—a prophecy for him in instinct comes!
who gets that so right? via paint that goes past paint through flesh and

into some Platonic beam of it, while the stolas unto Mary swoon with
the lights of heaven: gold tilting toward mustard, gun-metal blue, pink

from the love organ that needs no skin, and those mesmerizing arms!
I stand slack-jawed, honey-bellied, and kinetic where it counts—soon

dream of a suppleness among such vivid soft the sky itself could fling
down an early grave; I leave the room to ponder—return three times,

for three were needed, as the portrait preyed on when we know God—
a sight for a peeping St. John and his classical, nude, half-done figures

in the frieze: the blessings of antiquity: of balance, poise and fortitude;
enduring revelations in the eyes of men…the price we paid for leaving.