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The Art Museums
High-piled like palaces or Parthenons, Self-conscious and a little ill-at-ease With their fraught calm and delusions Of grandeur, they invite us Sundays To evade ennui and inclement weather. We dutifully leave our umbrellas and cameras behind Like preconceived opinions, and encounter one another Weaponless and Sunday-clothed, the mind Open to any suggestion. The galleries Receive us. We surprise the residents in all Sorts of attitudes and gallantries. Picasso's entrail-emblemed demoiselle- Reflecting on her reflection agreeing yes You look like hell-seems suddenly to comprehend Her own shortcomings, and blushes Garishly in blues and greens; while deep behind The looking-glass lies Goya's delicious Pear-fleshed duchess, peeled To the quick, hugged hotly by her lover's brushes (One wonders which of them is more revealed, Which one excels in innocence). The salt-cellar of Cellini Sees its brilliant coruscations as the Renaissance Itself, itself a tiny Age; as does the complex mobile Prehensiled on its cautious wire- A whole age trembling in its awful Balance. On these Sunday afternoons, we're Slowly and insidiously discomposed. The echoes of a painted rose Unfold in distant Persias just As effortlessly. And was It Sunday last, the mists and drizzles Bored us into sketching deer escaping Rudimentary menaces on granite easels? The stone's-throw of their frantic leaping Whispers in our ears. Conversation ceases. One can almost hear The stir of silk pelisses As Renoir's ladies brush their hair.