At last we know Bernini deceived us
when he chiseled his name on this stone.
Seven years his calloused hands dreamed
against the burnished limbs, grew pliant
as beeswax in the sun, the artist unable
to confess the miracle he’d seen –
cool marble melting over the shoulders
of a seraph who, granted the gift
of incarnation, emerged from his airy cloak
like flame, wavered before the kneeling saint
and smiled, the feel of his lips a brief
distraction until he lifted her scapular, opened
the coarse wool of her dress to expose
a breast not unused to discipline,
nights she’d tear at her inconstant, flickering
heart which he pierced with his burning dart
to make concrete the abstraction of love,
the distance between earth and heaven
diminished with each descending arc,
her head thrown back as he shrugged off
his immortal form, feathers settling
like ash at her feet and him still smiling
when flesh was seared into stone
by a god who merely lifted his hand,
that gesture which left Lot’s wife white
and framed against burning sky. How else
can we explain such perfect forms,
saint and angel enthroned on a cloud
in the act of rising toward the chapel dome,
when flesh and spirit faltered, entwined
in the rapture of matter which refused
their swift ascent, which whispered,
touch me here and here.
- Frank Paino, The Rapture of Matter
(formerly Frankie Paino)