Pulling Down the Sky
(the Sistene Chapel)
Matt Donovan
Piece by piece the sky was hacked, the star-flung heaven made years before,
its sheen of gold & ultramarine. And the firmament turned to pigmented dust
that caked & stained their forearms & necks & rained down in wide, benedictory arcs
into the space below. It grew dark, of course, & they worked torch-lit
& a man said said plaster, bucket. A man said scaffold, whore. And the hammers
mauling the sky from that height swallowed up the sounds from below:
a robed boy scurrying from the candles, the sunset vesper thrum.
And when they rested, they saw the ruin they had made & knew what was needed
would be done. To pull down the entire barrel vault blue, each starred width
of heaven. To prepare the space where they sky had been for, yes, a god
& the shapes of god. Of cloth, a mule, a knuckle. An axe, a bowl, some bread.
AngelfromMontgomery et al. 