We were so small,
standing by the silver globe
out in Queens,
both of us glazed with rain
and a little dazed
by the thick press of people
and the polyphony of voices
drumming against our brains.
We have just seen the Pietà,
flown in specially from Rome—
seven years before a crazed
man wielding a hammer
ensured it would never
leave an acrylic cage again.
I remember the marble
lit against blue velvet,
the gleam of light on stone,
the mother cradling her son—
her eyes seeing only him,
his seeing nothing at all.
The art didn’t impress us
as much as the sidewalk
moving us along
like something
from Tomorrowland,
its processional pace
ensuring we could not linger long
in that glowing, speechless grief.

This article appears in February 2023.

Elizabeth Martin Solsburg’s poetry has appeared in The American Scholar, The Northern Appalachia Review, The Avalon Review and elsewhere. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan.