Memento Mori in the Museums of Florence, by Matthew Brennan

Salome, by Alonso Berruguete (Spain) c. 1514

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Memento Mori in the Museums of Florence
 
The afternoon I filed into the Uffizi
I was jet-lagged and foot-sore but on fire.
But throngs of tourists thrashed through galleries
Like soccer fans storming out of a stadium,
The Botticellis and Titians blocked by bodies
And garrulous guides blaring babble.
 
And then a Salome burst before me,
The Baptist's head on a copper platter
And the guilty girl holding it slanted,
Just with fingers, bending her palm
So it would not touch the jutting jaw
And mouth that seemed about to speak.
 
That night, above the Arno, hung
A bloody moon I saw when wakened
By cries I heard beneath my window. 
I thought of Salome's copper salver,
Was thinking of it at the Duomo,
Where I strolled next morning in quiet rooms,
 
Until in a chapel I chanced on a relic,
The real jawbone of John the Baptist
Making ready the way before us.
 
Matthew Brennan

This poem was first published in Intégrité.

Matthew Brennan taught for 32 years at Indiana State University; his courses included literature and the visual arts.  He has published seven books of poetry, most recently The End of the Road (2023).  His criticism includes Wordsworth, Turner, and Romantic Landscape (1987).  He lives in Columbus, Ohio.