Montana,
you beat your fists
against museum doors
your bronze dress
shimmering
in the starless night.
The doors are locked,
Montana
dreaming
of snow-white mice
cluttering the shelves
in your kitchen,
snow-white mice
inside the oven,
snow-white mice
clogging
your shiny aluminum sink,
their corpses curled up
like piles
of fluffy cotton.
Mosques are desecrated
and altars overturned
outside the museum's
cool stone walls.
Border skirmishes
seen and heard
in the distance,
delicate bursts
of poppy-red flames.
The wars go on and on,
invading
your dreams.
The mirror reflects
a young man's body
dangling
from a rope
and you gasp:
"O, my brother—"
The doctor
finally lets you in,
unlocking the door.
Forbidden to touch you,
he stares straight ahead,
avoiding your curious glance.
"You're partly Egyptian, aren't you?"
The doctor inquires.
You stalk
the dark museum halls
calling out the name
of your dead lover,
the name of a man
unspoken
since the siege of Troy.
"How did you guess?" You growl,
"Do you have to open graves
to find girls
to fall in love with?"
The doctor smiles,
averting his gaze
from your ravaged face.
He longs to trace
your fish scale dress
with his slender fingers.
Montana
scarlet
shameless
Montana,
you stalk
the dark museum halls
in a rage.
Ripping
your satin gloves
to shreds
you pry open
coffins;
reading
between the lines
you decipher
hieroglyphics
on tombs.
"Any message would do,
you say,
tiny jeweled tears
permanently etched
in the corners
of your eyes.
The doctor sighs,
his impotence
ancient
as the curse
that immortalizes him,
the terrible secret
that pursues you.
Montana
on the night
of a full moon
you are a perfumed woman
in a bronze dress
who shatters glass
with a vengeance,
searching in vain
for signs and clues
among the rubies
and emeralds
that litter
museum floors.
THE MUSEUM WORKS FOR SCIENCE
NOT FOR LOOT,
the doctor tells you.
You laugh at his bandaged face,
the sad, smoldering eyes—
the only things visible
beneath the gauze.
"You can't tell the blood
from the paint
splashed on these walls,"
you say with contempt,
reaching out for his arm
in spite of yourself.
He moves away.
"I dislike being touched,"
he whispers,
"pardon me—it's an
Eastern prejudice."
You never see his anguish;
he won't allow it.
His pride
is what keeps him
going.
Exhausted,
you lie amid the rubble.
The mummy
guards your body
and you dream
of straddling
your sleeping lover's back
like a dolphin
you ride underwater
safe
within the confines
of deserted museum halls.
from: Danger and Beauty. Copyright 1993.
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