Michael’s chiseled hands have ¹
not formed me as Adonis
and yet Medusa’s writhing’s ²
have made me as cold as stone.

Alabaster arms,
alabaster lips,
a cold and lifeless form;
Pygmalion’s infant ³
breath lies ever stillborn.

Yet, I sculpt my life for all to see.
Display it, set it in museum-free.
Wait for all to come critique
my jaundiced eye, my hobbled knee,
and pray they not nail me to a tree.

But if they do,
I pray they see fit
to rest me by my top.⁴
Then with Peter, I’ll
cringe at our thrice told tale ⁵
and wrest not glory
from The Ancient Story.

Let me not efface the face that sculpted I.

© rl busséll 2021 – All rights reserved.

1. Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni or more commonly known by his first name Michelangelo. ↩
2. In Greek mythology, Medusa was a monster, a Gorgon, generally described as a winged human female with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Gazers upon her face would turn to stone. ↩
3. Like many do with Frankenstein and his monster, I’ve conflated Pygmalion with his creation. : ) ↩
4. Church tradition has it that Saint Peter was crucified upside-down. Origen says: “Peter was crucified at Rome with his head downwards, as he himself had desired to suffer”. ↩
5. Then Peter remembered what Jesus had said: “Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly. — Matthew 26:75 ↩