Musée des Beaux Arts
Look at the science, already.
I’m looking at the science:
it says we’re all going to die.
Reality will invariably fuck you.
By authentic do you mean good,
or like how they do it, from afar?
Whatever choices I made last night
were clearly not the right choices,
because of how I don’t feel today,
languishing among the Old Masters,
damask draperies, marble statuary:
entry via my expired student card.
The crowd pays homage to history,
whose vanishing point and horizon
line is time: imagine I’m the guide.
Do I tell you about the anatomy
as if it’s dispassionate reportage
or do I tell you about the plasma
within it: still quivering, alive?
You get the body you earn in life,
not the body you want or deserve.
Listen to those birds outside:
they can’t contain themselves.
As Rihanna said, use your words.
Sitting down and breathing is also an option.
A headless, winged victory is still a victory.
The miracle’s not the birth, but the return.
