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