Peer Comments 1, Week 4

To The Mummified Remains of Saint Ubaldo on Top of Gubbio

Known for humility, you lie at the apex, out of reach,

pedestaled, exposed, the years pressing down a man

to a shrunken child’s body. Protector of Gubbio,

who protects you, day after day, at the front of the Basilica

throngs before the marble altar with raised arms,

cameras in hand capturing your grotesque,

rigor mortis reflection? What do you reflect on?

Known for poverty, now forever clad in gold brocade

of a bishop’s robe, the silhouette of your open-jawed

mouth, stark as if a tourist socked a punch to your gut

and you forgot to tighten. Your mitre cap belongs

on a larger head. What is the smell of the air

trapped inside crystal, stale, medicinal? Behind you,

sunlight through the decorated windows streams your life

before the finely carved doors locked you out,

before fragments of frescoes cloistered you in.

Known for fervor and miracles, can you see the candles

stored in the nave, do you join the race?

What do you celebrate now? A misplaced pigeon?

What would you give for just one shadow

across your face, black, sharp, featheredges?

At night do you slip out and down steep Mount Ingino?

Do you wander the cobbled streets of Gubbio with feral cats,

where a used lift ticket rolls in wind spattered

with roasted boar? Do you stop mouth agape, amazed

your name emblazes postcards inside darkened shops?

And when you fly up, back to your glass perch,

before slipping into a cold bed, do you dismiss the bells

reminding the time, touch your tight sienna-tinged flesh,

notice you are not so different than another March,

another April, for centuries wondering

where they put not your brain, but your heart?

from Jo’s “Junkyard 3—Week 3”

Jo, I love this draft’s imagining of the interior life of Ubaldo from within the interior of his glass case. My favorite details and what I see as the strongest lines of this draft include: “years pressing down on a man to a shrunken child’s body,” “as if a tourist socked a punch to your gut,” and the lines that follow, critiquing his cap and wondering what it smells like inside the case. I find your imagining of Ubaldo’s nightly flights really strange and interesting, though I think you could really strengthen this section, making it active, no longer a thought, but the truth: “At night, he slips down steep Mount Ingino to feel the cobbled streets of Gubbio with the bottoms of his sienna-tinged feet, surrounded by feral cats….” When you get to the line about Ubaldo seeing the postcards, it breaks the magic, goes with expectation, portraying the stunned historical figure out of his time period. I suggest you either cut this, or make a turn against those expectations, maybe he isn’t stunned or disgusted or disappointed? He is used to this face and the faces that surround him constantly. I definitely think you have a false ending with “for centuries wondering/ where they put not your brain, but your heart?” due to its sentimentality. I wonder if his life of submission translates to his life now, after death? He’s soft as his body is rigid? I also prefer this in third person, rather than an address, at least for a draft, because I could see it creating more distance and decreasing the pity and sentimentality that anyone would feel for the poor guy. I really enjoyed reading this strong, imagistic, imaginative trip.