Madonna and Child with Saint John, by Frank Paino

Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (France) 1875

Madonna and Child with Saint John
 
             But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. Luke 2:19

Not everything the angel spoke in the narrow 
dark of Nazareth, nor every word 
the seraphs sang above that rough stable 

with its pall of dung and afterbirth was glory.
Before her Fiat came the spectre 
of all that was to come: bitter burst of locust 

on her nephew’s tongue, grit of sand against his teeth, 
a searing ache like Eden’s flaming sword sunk deep
into her breast as she beheld his head upon a salver.

And, yes, the seawater would rise
like cobblestone beneath the soles of her son’s
calloused feet, but, so too, his naked flesh

would be furrowed by whips, his wrists pinned
to wood hoisted on a godforsaken hill.
No wonder then, the succor she takes in the boys’ 

fleshly delight, too young for lust, still tender as two
ripened dates, mouth to mouth, heads inclined
to form a heart above her heart which understands

it will be shattered for a god’s unbearable design.
How deftly the artist fixed to canvas the sum
of brute history—that women pay the awful toll

for glories claimed by deities and men. Behold, 
the storm whose fury gathers in her sable 
chasuble, the sanguine flood that streams beneath.

Frank Paino

Frank Paino’s poems have appeared in a variety of literary publications, including: Crab Orchard Review, Catamaran, North American Review, World Literature Today, Gettysburg Review, Prairie Schooner, The Briar Cliff Review, Lake Effect and a number of anthologies. Frank’s third book, Obscura, was published by Orison Books in 2020. His first two volumes of poetry, The Rapture of Matter and Out of Eden were published by Cleveland State University Press. Frank has received a Pushcart Prize, The Cleveland Arts Prize in Literature, and an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council. His website is: https://www.frankpaino.net