Au Musée

i dislike the crowds

and the noise

i wish people were more reverent

though i suppose art is life, so 

it is only fitting that life be here, happening

in its presence

but i don't like coming, finding things changed

rather like someone has snuck

into your home

only to rearrange your things

while you were out

it is disconcerting

i want to go right up to the familiars,  

see my reflection in them

breathe my hot breath on them

changing only the slightest of molecules,

but leaving my impression

i want to run my fingers over them

absorbing the hardened strokes of

oils, egg temperas, gouache, and glass

i want to feel what you felt

while it was forming

inside of you

close-up, i can look right into the eyes

the ones that watched you

while you gave birth

(again, i feel bereft, that i am no one's muse,

and that my hands lack the skill

to paint what flowers in my head)

i can see the hair that you have cut

or the bristles that have fallen

from your tortured brush

embedding themselves

binding the two of you forever

tiny razor reminders of anguish

and the strength of truth

i could reach out, feel the swell of the lip

and the curve of the nostril

i know exactly how it would feel under my hand

but i long to do it anyway

i see the velvet

and my memory conjures 

the gentle push of it against my fingers

funny, how this works

the memory of sensation

And the dress cast in glass

would be cold

and smooth

lacking 

the warm curves

of a real woman

inconceivable that dust

should be allowed to gather

in the folds of that dress

the one that embodies the immortality

of femininity

i am a sensualist,

i do not deny that 

when the slab of marble was offered

i caressed it, 

running loving hands

over cool, rounded edges

cataloging the feeling of it

to refer back to

at some time in the future

when i am not allowed to touch