Saint Nicholas providing dowries to three virgins

Commonweal, Feb 28, 2003 by Jean Gallagher

(Bicci di Lorenzo, 1433)

   He gives a push with one foot and sets
   the room spinning. Coins just bearing
   the weightless, inflated expense of the possible
   float like empty gold planets over
   the bed's red continent. The girls spin
   inside their lives, all their luck reversible
   until this hour's gears re-engage
   and the stories put in motion take on
   their increasingly plausible, unforeseeable freight.