Scene from Caravaggio
Meanwhile, the artist’s hand
spreads black against black,
the rest of him off-screen, grinding
colors—divine-wine for the lips, underside-
of-watercress for the skin—glancing back toward me,
as if I am in the picture.
Watching him, alone
in lived time, I feel anachronistic, like the fedora
he wears, the cigarette he holds
against his lips with two fingers.
The screen I watch is a canvas strewn
with nudity, with the taken-
down, everything happening all
too late. The artist paints an angel, posed
on a box with a quiver,
though in the glow of the film, I can see
he is only a model with props in a studio.
Artificial light
burns in the stillness.
Chiaroscuro. The other half
veiled and equivocal, like the room
in which I myself am staged.
In which the screen illuminates
my mouth and forehead and eyes.
In which the difference between an angel
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