Day 6--Two Suppers at Emmaus by Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Supper at Emmaus
c. 1600-01; Oil on canvas, 54 3/4 x 76 3/4 in; National Gallery, London

The worm in the apple gnaws the fruit away,
 and the dressed fowl the men have devoured

by the time Caravaggio remembers the inn-keeper
 and his creased wife, the finer linens 

and the pitcher as detailed as the Gospel of Luke,
 and the ridiculously large ears of Cleopas.

What fierce blaze gets fired and glazed
 within the tender  hearted as a stranger paints 

the air with his midrash of pigment and time? 
 What light layers enough shadow over years? 

I am inventing this last part; the rest you could have 
 read or been shown on your own:

Caravaggio once punched a drunk in the head 
 and saw Jesus as the man’s flesh dented  

beneath his fist like a warm loaf. For five years,  
 the stranger arose again and again in Caravaggio’s eye.

Caravaggio, Supper at Emmaus 1606, Oil on canvas, 141 × 175 cm Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan