Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi, 1333
Mary and the angel on a shallow platform stage,
marble floored. Her thumb jammed between pages
of a red-backed book. Her torso curled concave, away
from the drill of his interruption. With index finger
he insists on a cluster of cherubim-faced owlets
glorying a dove angled toward her face.
Her slit-eyed repugnance ignores the parliament.
Her halo, already arrived, negates choice.
Jacopo Tintoretto, 1587
Mary, robust and mature, virgin by choice
and nobody’s spinster, forced backwards
by a squadron of flying babies,
a murmuration burst across the transom.
Gabriel sails through a vaporized door.
Side wall ripped away for our benefit:
witnesses to this invasion, this miracle
by duress. Dawn or dusk of broken fire
floods the violated room A man outside
among carpentry debris notices nothing.
Pedro Núñez del Valle, 1630
Mary, crimson-robed, with a Magdalene’s
heavy hair, once again obstructed from her book,
this time at a lectern. Now she follows
the angel’s forefinger to the dove’s belly
just above her head. That is, averts her eyes
from the horrid double- , triple- , quadruple-
conjoined cherub heads on plattered wings,
skittered across the floor. Escapees from
a medical museum’s religion department.
Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1898
Mary’s robe spills from the bed, melded
to a lava-rippled cotton blanket. Toes bare
on the wrinkled rug. She sits herself awake,
curious with an angled look at the faceless
shaft of electric white, room-tall brushstrokes
coronaed to pale yellow, gold. It casts shadows
behind her folded hands, her almost smile,
in her eyes a sideways glance across the brink.
John Collier, 2000
Mary, bony-elbowed at thirteen,
bobby sox and saddle shoes,
answers the doorbell, reading
in her little red book. Who put
this gardener’s pot of lilies
near the welcome mat?
The priest—he’s a new one—
where’d he find a costume
with realistic wings attached?
He must have the wrong house.
The wind stirs her dress, but
she doesn’t close her book.
June Sira, 2012
Mary at summer camp. Leggy
middle-schooler, red hairband,
blue shorts, barefoot on the grass.
The boy again, black tights and leotard
after ballet lessons, and this skanky
wolf-head mask dug from the costume room.
He takes a knee before her, hands crossed
like pictures in religion class.
Is his crush cute, she wonders?
Or is he just silly? They could sneak
that head into the next Christmas pageant.
The Lord is with thee, uttered in growl.
