The Martyrdom of Saint Serapion
                                    (after Zurbarán)
 
Out of the tenebrous canvas, he appears
to emerge, as if from the spiced cool
of an ancient tomb. No rumour
 
of the jeweled loops of bowel gaped
behind the ashen scapular which mutely
proclaims the gospel he is martyred for,
 
rough serge streaming the threefold enigma
down to the confluence that, doubtless, flows
over his sandaled foot, and from there
 
on to what is never-ending. But for us,
there is only paint and the exquisite
restraint of the artist’s palette:
 
cinerary white for innocence reclaimed;
incarnadine and gold for the Mercedarian seal;
a gloamy brown for the leather
 
that cinctures the young man’s waist;
his wounded brow brushed
in shades of heavy weather;
 
simple black for the tousled head
not yet half-sawn from the neck
but presaged by the way it seems
 
to float unmoored amidst the waves
of his voluminous capuche.
Almost an afterthought, inked on pale
 
vellum, the name of the blessed
is pinned on the ghost tree to which he
is affixed by ropes that seem less manacle
 
than coarse ovation, unable to so much as
crease his flesh or restrain such uncanny
weightlessness—as if, already, he is ascending.