Before a yolk-yellow break
in the clouds, Christ looks down
on pitchforks gathered in scenes
folkloric, the Haywain a lurid
moral painted on shutters,
but what I’m asking has nothing
to do with haystacks, though
the impossible pompadour
anchors the central panel,
zaftig, even holy, color
of chamois, as much as it does
with the figure in a wide-
brimmed hat pressing a dagger
to a man’s throat. No one
pays him any mind. Look right
and a blindfolded head dangles
from a pole: medieval terror
like twenty-first-century terror.
In your version of hell
the occupants are always
grotesque, which is far
from what I imagine. I always
believed the forked tongue
sprung from beauty—the devil
made lethal not for his hideous
soul, but his ability to hide it.
I have to hand it to you
for your brutal genius, palette
of robin’s egg blue studded
with cardinal red. Among
anonymous villagers, there’s a path
to carve with oversized wheels.
I’m setting forth on it.
© Karen Rigby
First published in FIELD.
Visit the painting at Museo del Prado.