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Poetry

after Caravaggio

Everyone loves figs.
Imagine the Virgin
imagining figs

Paint the girl
in your studio
modeling Mary

as she stares
past your shoulder
at a plate

of sliced figs.
Imagine the cherubs
imagining figs.

Imagine green, Capucine
yellow, imagine
mercurial vermilion

in the black background
of a body,
see my oiled wing

as the armor of Romans
who grip,
in the post-kiss

of Judas,
the luminous
curser of figs.

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