bronze of Despair. “Bored or barbarian”, she uttered
as he tried to figure out the angles of the damsels.
He slow-mo’d a swing kick, she dropped a sack
of bees. The buzz, her husky “what?” All the years

since, she’s pulled him around by his ponytail: “The Bather
relishes his bed of coals” and “Balzac draped in stone
leans to autumn light.” Now, it’s brie split on a plinth,
Bosc pears and planning. “Let’s get the Duesenberg.

I’ll take the guards, you knock out the chocks.” She sighs,
he follows her to film stills of the “luscious librarian”
and the “ice-cold sophisticate.” She pauses for response.
“A conspiracy of cliché?” His reward is Lucie done up

in dress whites: “This is late de Kooning.” He winces
at the lack of action. Lucie: “He chose the door to the river,
its bottom rocks, its run of luck.” They sample Gaugin,
which appeals to his faux-Asian ways. Lucie likes the early

Pollock: at the border of her own allegory, the Moon-Woman
Cuts the Circle. Now, they stand before Miró’s stars and body
parts. Steven transfers a palm-cupped Sobranie: “Everything
is out to kill us.” Lucie in the dark: “When I was young,

there were only two way to lose your virtue.” Hand in hand,
before The Entire City: “What will you do when you cannot
write?” Lucie hugs his ample midriff: “When I am up the River
Hubris without a paddle?” Every time is the last time. They walk

to the exit, he with his moves and she with her hair
that trumped Kunitz. There’s a crowd outside.