Artemisia Gentileschi / Judith

Artemisia –
Named for bitterness, motherless child-apprentice;
envy of the workshop as you ground chalk to powder.
Your blood tinged with pigment; Burnt Umber, Sienna,
and Indian Yellow mixed in your genetic code.
He was a serial rapist, but you weren’t to know.
Self-improvement became your spoiling. His tuition
in mysteries of the vanishing point, saw you impaled
on a Lead White bed, held down, outnumbered;
your screams smothered by his linseed oil stink.
He promised indemnity for your brutal deflowering,
but the only rings slipped onto your supple fingers,
were those of the torturer’s Sibille. Did your flesh
tear as they tightened the cords to twist out the truth?

Judith –
Self-portrait as Judith the apocryphal decapitator:
soft slayer’s hand grips beard fur – dark curled tufts
peek through. Hot fluid spills and hints at his unmanning.
Holoferenes has brewer’s droop – our heroine seduces
to emasculate. A mirror-image longsword for severing;
her blade wields vengeance in the Bone Black darkness.
Her brow, lined with determination, lips almost smile.
Brawny arms debone scrag end – slice through artery.
Arcs of Carmine spot her dress, brushstroked rich
Ultramarine or another hue: Artemisia Gold –
named after you.