12-05-2023, 07:14 AM
how this cave still has its bulls
painted lightly on its surface
even as its walls have shrunk
back from the air intruding on
the earth that is its home
no one can explain,
neither the virgin crowned a martyr
revealed to have passed away in peace
nor the couple all-but-married
for a decade breaking up
Francisco Franco bombed this cave
once, or so Picasso painted
on his ever-shrinking canvas
even their most helpful image
of the Ever-Virgin Lady,
they had stolen, they had stolen
and the tree stump once obscuring:
how it rots, uprooted
painted lightly on its surface
even as its walls have shrunk
back from the air intruding on
the earth that is its home
no one can explain,
neither the virgin crowned a martyr
revealed to have passed away in peace
nor the couple all-but-married
for a decade breaking up
Francisco Franco bombed this cave
once, or so Picasso painted
on his ever-shrinking canvas
even their most helpful image
of the Ever-Virgin Lady,
they had stolen, they had stolen
and the tree stump once obscuring:
how it rots, uprooted