Do they still write "The Guggenheim Fellowship Poem,"
which takes place in Italy -- in Venice, often, but sometimes Florence
with side trips to Siena, and maybe Arezzo, and certainly Ravenna,
and once in a while Naples? The poet goes to a museum in a flimsy skirt
in the fierce heat and the eyes of the men are upon her
as she walks on the hot stone street and she wears sunglasses
in the Audrey Hepburn fashion but all pretense and fancy melt
when she comes face to face with Titian's La Bella
or the Penitent Magdalene at the Pitti Palace
or Donatello's naked bronze David at the Bargello
or a Perugino fresco of the Crucifixion
or Piero's Madonna and Child in Urbino
or Raphael's Madonna of the Goldfinch at the Uffizi
or a Giorgione self-portrait in Venice, which is a vision
of her father or her husband, she's not sure which,
though she will spend hours analyzing the possibilities, but this
she knows: it was a sudden flash, an epiphany even,
like seeing a broken statue and realizing you had to change your life.
-- DL
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