Judith

The article is entitled 

Judith and Holofernes 

(Donatello) and it’s about

the same length as the statue itself.

I was scrolling for inspiration

since I knew I wanted to do 

something with the gilding, how while

it had once covered the whole of the bronze 

widow-assassin and her quarry,

it now remained only on the blade.

It felt like a layup: something about gold

in the place where the blood would’ve run.

Violence, power, lust, karma.

But I was soon derailed by a misreading

of the final word of the opening bit,

‘topos’ not being part of my everyday

vocabulary, of course, meaning

the story was now a representation

of “The Power of Women tops.”

“Yeah,” I could hear the hero say.

“I guess things got kinda carried away.”

What to do with the gold in that case?

The sword’s too obvious a metaphor.

Something about the gleam of arousal,

a priceless performance, true love

and karma, power, violence, lust.