Del Parto

I don’t know what carried me here 
to Monterchi, perched above mountain bulges 
shaped like the side-bellies of well-fed sheep. 
Or why, when taken in 
to view Piero’s fresco of the Madonna del Parto,
I feel like an intruder
walking in on a girl—tangled in teenhood—
loosening the buttons of her faded lapis robe. 
Flanked by two boy-angels, she is heavy 
with child, anchored in a tent of light-grey fur, 
drapes the color of dried blood. 
Her oval eyes, downcast, direct my gaze 
to her right hand, hanging above a slit 
of white cloth that covers from breast-bone
to navel. Her fingers are soft but gnarled, 
perhaps from twisting and untwisting her hair 
late at night. Does she believe no one 
will notice the crooked fingers of her left hand 
curled into hip, as if trying to hide 
the fingernails’ insatiable need to fidget, pick? 
Her hands pull me back to the pouty nineteen year-old
I once was: dressed in baggy denim cut-offs, 
cream-colored peasant blouse, my fingers tapped 
uncontrollably on invisible piano keys
lining my outer thighs. Walking home
I was petrified my mother—who knew I was too young 
to be a mother—would notice my skin-glow, 
feigned half-smile. Now, fifty years later, facing 
the Madonna, I wonder how Piero knew  
to mute most of the fear on her face 
with shades of pearl. She looks serene
yet distracted—like when something 
has already happened without announcing itself.
Like the low, faint hum of a hymn 
that stays long after an angel leaves. Like the newfound
power she did not choose, but one that will be 
hers forever after she is drained dry.