“Spun on the sprung reflections caught in a stranger’s eye/
Year after year,/ you would not imagine yourself if you could,/ Peninsulaed as
you are, and rare.”
Charles Wright, “To the Egyptian Mummy in the Etruscan
Museum at Cortona”
Ubaldo, white and gold, smoldering in glass, and gold, and
the cathedral that pulls the penitent and tourist alike up the mountain as if
they were angels in iron cage and wire. Ubaldo’s feet slant to the right, face
the faces that have flown up for intercession and the cold wood benches. A gold
and white hat balloons from his dark face. It is white, unlike his body, but it
is waxy, like his face and hands, which are the only parts of Ubaldo that can
feel the stale air of the glass case. It has been centuries, Ubaldo, what would
you have seen, if you could see? Much more than the pale worshipper who edges
out when our group emerges from the heavy doors. But maybe not much more than
so many giant wooden candles, unflickering red on the backs of young men, the
race for you, the climb, without wing or wire, up the mountain. You did not
always rest here, so close to blank sky, unable to see it. When they raised
your body with tissue paper hands, could you see Gubbio grow small beneath the
soft slippers on your rigid feet, the city of wool, and wolf.
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