Michelangelo's Bacchus, by Peter Tolly

Drunken Bacchus, Michelangelo Buonarroti (Italy), 1496-7.

Michelangelo's Bacchus

To the thirty-something across from me on the 
languid train from Florence back to Pistoia,
rowdy years perhaps behind but just barely,
          punkish vibe humming 

in the shock of disheveled, sun-bleached curls 
atop a chiseled yet youthful face. Such day-to-day
subtlety must have ripened this place for 
          certain keen sculptors.

To the faded jeans and t-shirt concealing form
with as much tact as an ex post facto
fig leaf, rolled-up sleeves spilling bronzy biceps--
          curvature of a life 

spent lifting buckets of paint or plaster,
kegs of wine or maidens by the bare haunches.
To the staggered stance in the carrozza stairwell
          and gaze out the window.

Thank you for the contrapposto, for essence
captured in a pose—the animal warmth and
human ingenuity that Michelangelo 
          conjured in marble.

Peter Tolly

Peter Tolly has studied and practiced creative writing at Northwestern University--where his poetry earned the Faricy Award in first place and appeared in the campus literary magazine Prompt--and more recently at the Aegean Center for the Fine Arts in Paros, Greece. He is currently based in Wisconsin.