Madonna and Child
Duccio di Buoninsegna (ca. 1300),
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
By Jonathan Fletcher
January 15, 2023
January 15, 2023
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No less mother and son than them,
we study the painting from behind the glass: smaller than what we pictured, the tempera still rich, cracks visible in the gold-ground panel. There’s no Joseph here. As I watch you watch the Baby Jesus reaching for Mary’s pink veil, your face, like hers, saddens. In your ear, I want to whisper, You won’t lose me like him. But I don’t, can’t. Before we leave the gallery, you point to the burnt edges of the frame: proof that votive candles once flickered below. It’s devotional; we’re not, have never been. And yet, to each other, we’re faithful, sacred. |
Originally from San Antonio, Texas, Jonathan Fletcher, a BIPOC writer, currently resides in New York City, where he is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in Poetry at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. He has been published in Arts Alive San Antonio, The BeZine, BigCityLit, Clips and Pages, Door is a Jar, DoubleSpeak, Flora Fiction, FlowerSong Press, fws: a journal of literature & art, Half Hour to Kill, LONE STARS, MONO., Moot Point, The Nelligan Review, New Feathers, OneBlackBoyLikeThat Review, riverSedge: A Journal of Art and Literature, Otherwise Engaged Journal: A Literature and Arts Journal, Spoonie Press, Synkroniciti, Tabula Rasa Review, The Thing Itself, TEJASCOVIDO, Unlikely Stories Mark V, voicemail poems, Voices de la Luna, and Waco WordFest. Additionally, his work been featured by The League of Women Voters of the San Antonio Area and at The Briscoe Western Art Museum.