at the museum

1
Statues of archaic figures with
almond eyes hover above a diffusing crowd,
much like storm clouds do in springtime.
I have rewritten their language to be my own.
Clinging my belongings as they spill
over my weak half nelson, I appear to some
as a bag lady, some as an Olympian.
The clicking of my too-tight-shoes
grows loftier as I make my way down the corridor,
and the stare of some Doryphorus burns itself
some place between my shoulder blades.
Athens rests upon my lips here, it is
sweet and the scent of Cyprus, of clay,
of dry air -- it is all the heaviness
of the Gigantomachy on the Temple of Zeus
in Berlin, and it stings my sinuses.

2
These many words have not been translated,
not to me and everybody knows it, even the guards
in all of their hand me down shirts.
In some other hall or gallery a thousand
Madonnas line the walls, the pietas
sag and melt like molten steel -- she
sinks low and slow like blackstrap molasses,
or like some Herb who's reluctant to speak up.
This is my thirteenth time visiting this wing,
which is why the Mother's behaving this way.
It's tricking and I got it.

3
In the darkness of the third floor
I'm noticed by a woman of about ninety,
the thick lines of pragmatism hide in her face.
She picks my scarf up off the floor, looks up,
her bright eyes the like the hole in the Pantheon.
I imagine scooping them out like soft pearls
and fashioning a necklace to see forever with.
Shade thanks the woman for her keffiyeh,
then continues down the hallway in silence.
She will go on knowing the woman is
only steps behind her and will think
about the years between them, all of
the miles and countries that make
her a girl in her twenties and
the woman unknowable.

4
I lean against the salty marble wall,
wrapped in shivering coldness chattering
teeth that could provoke an earthquake.
In nomini Patri... In the name of the father,
I mumble this while all the saints and sinners mock me.
The legends here have their place on the wall,
I am their outsider getting drenched
in their laughter and finding my
way back into the crowd.