Laura Maffei
Mosaics Class in the Cubicle Age
We learn to score the glass and break it clean
avoid the dust, protect the eyes and hands,
and try an art first tried in other lands,
in other times--when craftsmen to a queen
laid out a floorscape made of stone, unseen
by most, or walls of gold professed a man's
divinity, or squares and careful plans
depicted pridefully a lush cuisine.
For us, a dozen after-work adults,
the goal is not so much in the results
as in the unaccustomed, pleasant state
of temporary artisan; the rate
of progress unimportant, and our style,
a choice of cheerful color in the tile.
To the Body of St. Lucy*
I circle you from head to toe to head
to where the silver mask conceals your face,
a miracle expired--their disgrace,
not yours, these gruesome tales they choose to spread
of living death, of frozen flesh, of dread-
ful tomb diversions in a wretched race
to heaven, instead of graces commonplace
and kind, by which we might be comforted.
Was this a girl who, besides her steely will
to keep that chastity which men so prize,
had kept as well a love of easing pain
or making peace or just the simple thrill
of song? And where my footfalls' echoes rise
inside this church, does part of that remain?
*St. Lucy is believed to be a virgin martyr from the 3rd century. For many years her body lay on display in a church in Venice, proclaimed by Roman Catholic authorities to be miraculously incorrupt. In 1955, however, it was decreed that her decomposing face be covered with a silver mask.
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