from The Face (XV)

DAVID ST. JOHN

From THE FACE

XV

Focus fogs, & fails. I had come, it seemed, to the end of

my life-

Truly, something within me had smashed like a stone wall

In any Italian hillside town, collapsing as the lazy

earthquake ripples

Along its faults -& so, desperate, I found myself searching

out

Any consolation at the exhibition of drawings by my

adored Raphael,

& as I moved away from the Cloak of Dante, I glanced up

across

The room to the red chalk & exquisite sensual ease of The

Three Graces,

Each a slightly altered rendering of the same figure, the

same

Woman, the same body . . . & just as

That recognition arrived within my own body, I saw that

Toni

Had silently moved beside the tall frame of those graces,

herself an

Astoundingly perfected presence, her own face attended by

some rare

Renaissance poise, & in her coffee leather jacket, such a

golden grace shone.