poem

by M. Nasorri Pavone 

At the Louvre Mona Lisa Makes Us Wait

After "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world". – Wikipedia 

Like a bank teller, she sits

behind bullet-proof glass,

though she is the bank

she guards. We stand

in a long line to do

the event of seeing her.

Shielded from us,

we’d tear her apart—

bears-on-the-run—if she

or anyone let us even

breathe upon her trapped

majesty. Since we ache

and reach, we forget

our claws can’t help but

scratch and dig. Instead

we gawk from the railing,

Look! There. She. Is.

Who knows what shoes

a bank teller wears

if you can’t see them.

I pray it doesn’t rain.

My old right boot worries

me with its dime-hole.

Mona doesn't show us

her feet so I can wonder:

soft, black slippers?

Leather. Ankle. Leash?

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M. Nasorri Pavone’s poetry has appeared in Delta Poetry Review, River Styx, One, b o d y, Sycamore Review, New Letters, The Cortland Review, Rhino, The Citron Review, Innisfree, DMQ Review, Pirene’s Fountain, I-70 Review, One Art and others. Her work has been anthologized in Beyond the Lyric Moment (Tebot Bach, 2014) and nominated several times for both Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize.