Praying to Fra Lippi’s Mistress

Make them forget there’s such a thing as flesh.

— Robert Browning

1.

Opening the triptych panels wide, I kissed faceless

what I thought for years was the true Madonna

saying prayers before I pulled back my bedding, washed off my make-up.

I watched her disappear over time, smear into a red window.

2.

In art history books we learned she wasn’t sacred after all,

but, rather, Friar Lippi’s mistress, Lucrezia Buti,

for whom he risked everything;

set against steep cliffs and stunted trees,

the glow of her skin rising over the banks of angels.

3.

I’ve watched my daughter press her cheek against hers,

slowly trace with her finger the large pear-shaped pearl

hung low on the Madonna’s shaved, perfectly domed forehead.

But if the Madonna wasn’t sacred to Fra Lippi, what would he have done with us?

Would he have painted the skin of my daughter’s cheek

as she knelt in prayer, her long brown hair cascading down her back?

She places a kiss on what’s left of Lucrezia’s face.

Afterwards, she gently wipes her mark.

4.

There’s space left by adoration to place one’s face.

This is a woman, this is flesh. We know what’s ours to pray for —

all of us, sumptuous vanishing points.

Cloud of breath, heavy dew.