Ghost Slipper

Before merchant ships were bound to the harborby closed trade routes, they traveled eastwith spring’s warm wind,for lapis lazuli, azurite, and indigo.To acquire devils’ blue, painters crushed the stonesand mixed the powder with linseed oil.Eastern goods were lost, so they used charred woodto blacken the skins of demonsand render the flesh of Berbers, Moors, and Africans.

The oldest fresco in the city depicts the Queen of Shebareceived by Solomon and twelve jeweled retainers.Though, in the story, he will be abandoned,it is she who remains. His thronefaded in a flood, his pale pigments didn’t last a century.Her hands, delicate as sparrows, gesturetoward wisdom: it’s not that she still reaches for himbut that she still loves what failed.