Ecce Homo Padua
At the Chapel of St. James, no one was there.
There were just empty, white plaster buckets
scattered over the floor, and almost everywhere
there were drips of hardened plaster–plaster
on wooden scaffold planking, metal brackets,
on plastic sheets strung like trapeze nets
meant to catch whatever drippings might fall
from overhead that could damage the murals;
suddenly, sitting on planking was a workman
covered in white–face, arms, T-shirt, pants–
sitting there as if present at the Crucifixion:
behind, at left, the expired Christ; by chance,
at right, an angel–prodding him to ignore us,
to look behind him and put down his thermos.