Though there are studies for it
Showing a cat being playfully throttled
By a child of two, Leonardo's painting
Madonna and Child with a Cat
Is said to have vanished or perhaps
To have never been made at all.
This isn't so; the cat persuaded
Mary and the baby to run away
Leaving behind an empty room
Wonderfully painted. In time,
A superannuated war goddess, Belet-Seri,
Moved in, She's put on Leonardo’s table
A list of names left behind by shades
Who travel the afterworld incognito.
She looks out the window at a landscape
That turns blue as it recedes. She holds
A tall feather -- probably a peacock's
But possibly an archangel's. The picture
Hangs in the Uffizzi labeled "Old Woman
With A Quill; School of Verrocchio."
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