java boy

i

a stately statue of a god pretends.
he walks up high and holds his head
hiding moments of time when
plaster tears tick at his tall form.

a beauty combs his hair for the world,
watches the world news
and chews
a bagel, failing to look lonely -

i've got it all. no one can touch me, says the face.
says the way it crosses one thin leg over the other.

silver buttons stud a black coat.
shiny, in some other world

than you
who feels about as grey
as the hooded sweatshirt you're wearing today.
about as misplaced
as the extra spiral table notebook,
often abused in use.

sitting with an attempt at remembering
lukewarm orange tea
but for the artpiece taking eyespace
reclining there, a glass case
that would surely break if you tried to touch it
or speak in the slightest way -
hi, i'm a nothing trying to absorb some of your something -

because statues are static.

and the next time you want your onion and chive cream cheese one will be there.
and the next time you feel like a lemon poppyseed muffin one will be there.

everything is always on display in this gallery,
each beautiful piece
that you know you can't afford.
so you stare,
window-licking.

looking in, looking on
wondering what it is that renaissance sculptures do
when you turn away.
when they have their own day
cracking self paintings and doing the jitterbug with monet's lilypads.


ii

an achingly beautiful painting laughs.
he stretches perfect lips to bliss
waves molded hands
and languidly leans against a flat brown bag.

the beauty is blinding, expressioned.
the brown hair bleeds joy, movement.
the body says, i know.

you walk on,
in admiration.
and you walk.
and you walk.

you forget the things you've done,
the things you've said.
crunched under a coat
your path manifests itself reluctantly.

past the boy,
past the brilliant sun,
captured so exquisitely against a canvas.

you are always underneath pictures,
the photographs blasting against your plain olive skin.
falling gently back to your original place,
feeling the flutter of a faraway face,
forming a smile that sends you to the stars,
forgotten, forgiven for what you know you must be.

you say don’t you touch me.
you statue. you frame.
it says but i know you.
i know

your name.
innocently spoken and casually placed against a sugar tongue with a rockstar voice.
it’s swimming in concrete. a drowning blue sky.

dreaming. a fantasy. blurry and broken.
jolting you out with such few words spoken.
you pound shake throb at the sight of the eye.
you can't believe trust know that this might have known i.

stiff, you become, like cheap finish.
legs run in watercolour.
it’s still new to you, this place among art,
as fluid as it may have become.

you see yourselves in painting.
a michaelangelo, a raphael.
you see yourself as a man
and you think him a god
dying for what you have been
crucified for your doubts and your sin.


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