Classic Poem

—after Miguel Cabrera, 1763
What holds me first is the stemmed fruit
in the child’s small hand, center of the painting,
then the word nearby: Texocotes , a tiny inscription
on the mother’s basket—vessel from which,
the scene suggests, the fruit has been plucked.
Read: exotic bounty of the new world
—basket, fruit; womb, child.
Then, what looks to be
tenderness: the father caressing
his daughter’s cheek, the painter’s light
finding him—his profile glowing
as if lit from within. Then I note
his fingers, how he touches the long stem
gingerly, pressing it
against her face—his hand at once
possessing both. Flanked by her parents,
the child, in half-light, looks out as if
toward you, her left arm disappearing
behind her mother’s cloak. Such contrast—
how not to see it?—in the lush depths of paint:
the mother’s flat outline,
the black cloak making her blacker still,
the moon-white crescent of her eye
the only light in her face. In the foreground,
she gestures—a dark signal in the air—
her body advancing toward them
like spilled ink spreading on a page,
a great pendulum eclipsing the light.