Fragment from the Rodin Museum

Abstract

Gravel formal rectangles pathways yellowish brown like along Champs Elysees asked them to bring it over dead shrubs cut square around pool seventyfive feet long twenty-five feet wide water dead unfrozen winter water motionless concrete wall just above ground level foot wide pathway surrounding pool then dead hedge two feet high then expanse of yellowish brown pea gravel under feet air a whir a whirring sound from traffic one hundred yards away along parkway moving consistent 5pm blurs traversing distance beside pool sound of gravel below away sound of whir steady unchanging back of pool ground damp off gravel ground black dead unfrozen wet winter ground cold 5pm light fading back of pool first step sound of gravel stopped two sounds foot on granite block below drifting whir traffic parkway sitting above granite stairs (her) legs slightly apart eyes half closed legs and eyes slightly apart immobile watching pool below hearing foot immobile passing her above her top stair twelfth her thighs press seventh down seven yellowish gravel pool somewhere a word inscribed gravel word unreadable at distance whir and 5pm light directly in front green vertical expanse bronze in and out focus representations pushing falling stretched strained naked metal stops space stepped along gravel sound thighs against granite stops against second gated world of congealment. (Cue: Oompah band keeps heavy time with each word)-Spirits, genii, angels, nymphs, satyrs, bacchantes, sirens, centaurs, dancers, bathers, Satan, Adam, Eve (before and after the Fall), Christ, St. John, Mary Magdelen, Bacchus, Psyche, Orpheus, Ariadne, Ugolino, Aphrodite, Apollo, Mercury, Perseus and Medusa, Pygmalion and Galatea, Paolo and Francesca, Romeo and Juliet, Ovid and Dante, sin, melancholy, sorrow, despair, desire, embraces, abductions, rapes, sleeps, fatigues, awakenings, reveries, meditations, self-sacrifices, muses, maternities, incests, perils, slitherings, pulsing, throbbing, sagging, tumescent, bulging, hacked, slicked, gouged, polished, ripped, probed, kneeded, torn (Cue: cut Oompah band) are not the first stirrings of an animated clay so much as a population melting down into ...