COSTANZA BONARELLI

A bust that looks just-kissed,

from the blind intensity

of her gaze to the somewhat swollen

parted lips, to the parting,

above her rumpled chemise,

of two soft breasts his hands

lifted from stone, Bernini’s

lover was designed

to please—to have and hold

in his own eyes as forever

undone and to-be-done-to,

a melting readiness.

Oh the inconstant Costanza,

true-to-life but untrue!—

whose drawing power, coiled

as the heavy braid he pulled

behind her head, yet loose

as the involving tendrils

that tumbled to one side,

originated from

within a designing woman.

If either alone suffices

(love or art, that is)

to lead a man to believe

whole days can be best spent

lost in a woman’s hair,

how could he not have wept

at the upswept and downfallen

tresses of one who was

both singular ideal—

a thing he’d hewn from rock

into his own landmark

in portraiture, quintessence

of the sinuous baroque—

and all too two-faced mistress?

That she was capable

of deception—this was fine,

one guesses: a frisson

at first, that she (the wife

of his apprentice) gave

in private no resistance

to a greater man’s assistance.

But now the great man’s brother?

His brother? When the rumor

reached him, Bernini sent

a razor-bearing servant

to do what must be done.

He wasn’t going to kill her.

No, but he’d leave a scar,

a sort of Kilroy was here;

he’d affix his stamp, he’d fix her

once and for all, for good—

indeed, he’d have his thug

underling slash her face,

her living flesh, with a tool

not so unlike the one

that he alone, the master,

had been skilled enough to wield,

watching the marble yield

to each sweet, painstaking stroke

of chisel against cheek

until, so real, she fairly

cried out for more.