Gaudi at the Punta della Dogana                         


            It was the Gaudi chair outside the shop
            That reeled me in,
            A striking piece of work

            I didn’t need to sit in it
            To know its curving arms would not embrace,
            Though they might grant my own
            A momentary rest

            I left the sunlight and canal
            To venture in and brave a monstrous gloom of
            Old meticulously crafted artefacts and oversized
            Facsimiles of ships that had the tang of dust
            Instead of salt

            No doubt a cordial avaricious mannequin
            Would tell me that its price was
            Far beyond the reach of wayfarers like me,
            But I was used to bargaining for sport

            The apparition that emerged, however,
            Turned me mute:
            I took a backward step 
            Into an unseen prow and blushed,
            Not from desire, as she smiled

            When I regained my tongue
            I tried to say, in not so many words
            Before I hastened out, that certain beauties
            Were at best beheld, not clinched

            And as I flew away along the labyrinth
            I swore she knew that if I lingered any longer
            I would prove myself a liar


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             Emanuel E. García, Sojourns2014