For all the times when you want to know what's going on in someone's head, ask them to paint you a picture with words. This is what you'd get from me. I've said on more than one occasion that I feel like a performer at times. Apparently, as a teenager, I felt more like a statue. I guess you could call it progress that I can now walk and talk, right?
Lady
mistress madam stands
under a soft
focus diffused spot
people are
murmuring at her feet
“this new
life-model motif is sensational”
says one
his woman
nods
oddly, she
never blinks
her eyes
seem, un-naturally, to focus on something
no one can
see
on the
inside
she’s been
here, in this place,
the hallowed
marble halls of historical
for years
the rod in
her back keeps her from slouching
her wrists
are chaffed
from the
natural plated rope that binds them
some days,
the light focused and warm above her
giver her
sporadic hair
a kind of
halo glow
other days,
it only proves to show how matte and dull it is
the people,
viewers, families and tours
are faceless
it could be
the same crowd
the same
children, the same wide-eyes tours
day after
day
some man
remarks about her small breasts
trying to
seem art conscious
but coming
out crude
he blushes
and walks on
Her feet,
living and pink
are attached
to nothing
though she
doesn’t return home after a long day at the office
the ropes
around her “display”
keep her
safe from spectators, them from her
“It’s
amazing how she stands there”
says a tour
guide,
throwing in
his own tidbit of museum trivia
“First day
on the job, I swore she’d move
I lost $20
to a pal o mine when she didn’t budge.”
Security
knows she’s alive
when the
lights go dim, the alarms switch on
and the
people go back to their grind
they record
her climbing down
from her
mock pedestal
untying her
wrists and looking around.
At first,
that was all she did.
Entered the
rooms surrounding hers, looking
There was
once when she danced.
The too-long
sleeves on her clothes fell to her elbows
as she
raised her arms in time to the triumph in her head
her music,
only hers, could she hear
snapshots
taken by
people who have come to marvel
show her
cheeks red some days
as if she’s
about to cry
an even as
strange and mysterious as the virgin Mary as well shedding tears
other photos
show her eyes focused on the living world
she in
stillness, changes
living art
caught in an
instant of movement and stasis
she, like
this, can not exist
but her
pedestal bears her weight
and the
inspection of passers by.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.