In our rental, a mounted puzzle
Picasso’s Guernica all jigsawed
on a board, a few missing edges
and my children see the animals
nay-nay, moo-moo, hint of bird
wing over the anguish of human
suffering, familiar figures thrust
in supplication, in abandonment,
shapes like an infant lost in arms
of a mother unseen or else asleep
and, anyway, a long hallway runs
between bedrooms and a kitchen
choice of snacks—blood orange,
red pepper, ciruela, pepino, pear
from a morning market, unsliced
still life unpainted on the counter
—and the surprise of what I know
as art, as war, is to them in passing.
Later, we stand beneath Escalante
at a museum, óleo sobre lienzo on
Holy Tuesday, a bag of dried figs
left with our stroller folded below
before the processions, costumed
penitents marching to the Passion
of Christ laid in brushstrokes and
I hear, what are the angels doing?
her eyes on the canvas, hand held
in mine, the bird-winged kissing
a wrist limp, stuck with iron nail
body slumpen on a burial shroud
and static glow of halos, childlike
cherubim caught within clouding
and another underneath, clasping
at the rope holding a cross, fallen
as Crist mort adorat pels àngels
and I say, they are greeting him.
Outside, we buckle our youngest
and his sister bends unprompted
to kiss his knees, our oldest still
with the stains of candied grape
red on her palms from morning,
beside Benlliure’s cast of youth
mistaken for angels, the creases
of flesh collapsing hills in each
thigh, elbow, stomach, knuckle
while the bronze of their stares
sets toward the failing grip of one
in suspension, the curl of his toes,
gape of a mouth, slipping, pushed
beyond saving and never reaching
the water, the fountain lips spilling
above gardens grown in a dry river
beneath el puente de la Trinidad,
old bridge built on Moorish wood.
El monstruo, el monstruo—ours
hark back to an oil of Sant Miquel
Arcàngel, smitten with the demon
speared underfoot, both winged,
warrior cloaked in armor, naked
devil, for the moment restrained,
not yet taught to see birdlike over
serpentine, they ask, was he hurt?
was he hurting? and while waiting
for our answer forget the question
with the clamors of other children
leaving school before their holiday,
lock arms together outside the gate
and skip past the drawn gratings of
late afternoon as we make our way
to our temporary dwelling, climb
the stairs before the light times out,
sit on the balcony, prepare our fruit.
Seán Carlson is working on his first book, a family memoir of migration. His writing has appeared recently in Crannóg, New England Review, The Irish Independent, and Ninth Letter. He received a 2024 Elizabeth Kostova Foundation poetry fellowship in Bulgaria.
