PIETA:
A MOTHER LOOKS UPON THE BODY OF HER SON

by Susan Dunn
August 2000

The feeling is so overwhelming

That you must pick him up and hold him against your breast

Like you used to –

As Michelangelo knew, who never had a mother.

The only work he ever signed was the Pieta

Writing his name on the ribbon across the breast

Of the mother of all mothers, the mother he never had.

And he gave her a lap big enough to hold a grown man --

She would be 7’ tall if standing.

You circle the body again and again,

Instinctively positioning yourself to pick him up.

There is so little time and so much work to do.

You place his hand against your cheek, the way he used to,

Then his arm around your shoulder, the way he used to,

And you cup your arms around his head, and lay your head against his,

And then there is his hair which must be touched,

And what about his knee?

There is so little time and so much to do,

And you are going to have to remember this for a long, long time.

It is painful work,

Knowing that one of the times you touch his cheek

Will be the last,

And then you also must decide …

What you will touch last.