I the King

Some mock my cousin’s vanity. They say
the cross of Santiago on his chest
was painted long before the king
had honoured him. Yet others claim
the royal hand inscribed the sign
after Diego’s death.
 
I do not know who put it there,
though modern tests have proved
the scarlet cipher’s in another hand
than his: the brushwork indicates
a different artist. If you press
me to name names, I must suspect
his son-in-law.
 
Eliminate the king. Our Philip is not known
for painterly pursuits. The hunt’s his sport,
for stag or wolf, or woman. Intellect
is not his thing: he reads the paperwork
of state, but literature? And art? Others
do that for his aggrandisement. Hard to compare
his pen-strokes with the swirling scarlet cross:
his written words are few. He signs decrees
with arrogant disdain, in sprawling script:
             yo el rey
 

Lyn Moir

in collection Velásquez’s Riddle, 2011, Calder Wood Press,
ISBN 978-1-9026293-8-4;
first published in The Interpreter’s House, 2010