The focal point of Jean-Léon Gérôme’s painting Pygmalion and Galatea…
Poems by John Brooks
Met
In an orca-colored room,
we glare into a jungle
which is actually Paris.
I tell you I loved Rousseau
when I was a young man;
I am a young man and love
Rousseau, you say. His half-coy
beast, concerned with repast
and eyeing something delicious
on Bonnard’s adjacent terrace,
pays us no mind. It’s morning—
there’s so much time—the king
is feeding, perhaps on a crocodile.
We skip Vincent’s wind-whirled
cypresses, Renoir’s hideous carmine
cheeks, and pass through ancient
lands: Phoenicia, with her serene
sarcophagi, and Babylon, where
a small, smooth frog was used
to measure weight. I want to
carve stone, you say. Feldspar,
hematite, if you can find it.
There’s only so much time.
We are leaping through gold
dust brume, backward into what
is now someone else’s shame.
Islands, romance, banquets
lie ahead, if we’re lucky…and
if we’re not, there is rose water
and war. But we are happy, kiss
anyway, step out into lamplight,
into city light, into a shower
of glowing meteors, and I am
at your feet, judging love’s
riddling timbre. You carry a trio
of hot soups; the miso blooms
in the broth. After days of rain,
the garden is open again; I turn
around to look at the flowers
and two women are grinning
at us. Their little dog lives
in a house for nothing. Under
your Wranglers, your underwear
is light blue and a little shiny,
like abalone, and barely
holds it all in.
Nightjars
Doomed to wander, nightjars
have a habit of resting
and roosting on roads. Gathering
strength to sing, they might also
be rewriting melodies. As a boy,
in the dark, I made myself
as flat as I could be under
the covers. On the top bunk,
I used to sing myself to sleep.
Here Comes the Rain Again, but
hymns, mostly: Make Me
a Channel of Your Peace, How
Great Thou Art. I sang loudly.
Too loudly, it seemed—my parents
came separately, knocking
politely on my door, asking me
to rejoice a little more quietly.
I remember my mother said
exactly that. Moonlighting
or Dallas was on. But those
songs filled me up and moved
me like wind: Then sings my soul!
and Oh, Master, grant that I may
never seek. Those are not quiet
words! But I sang softer, just
to myself, so my voice would
never leave the room. National
Geographic maps were pinned
to my walls. My loneliness roamed
around the continents, across
disputed borders, plumbed the sea
for notable rifts and trenches.
I thought everyone
felt all the feelings.
Lakehouse II
Lake silence, no night
song, no dawn chorus,
the birds already flown
south, the frogs burrowed
in the benthos. It’s autumn,
but almost warm. Young enough
to brave the chill, we debate
one last swim. I’m picking apples
with my eyes, scanning the ledge
across the water for delicious reds
amidst the ochres, titians, sepias.
This is a real backwoods town;
we download Grindr to see
what it’s like, but already know
each tiger, each somatic
archetype. Conner says
there’s a ninety-nine year old
owl spirit just a few towns
over, but he’s an expensive
kind of lady. I text my man
a picture of me in bed and
he replies could you try to be
a little less beautiful? A blue
sheet covers my lower body
like I’m half-submerged.
David has been writing
haikus; in an antique shop,
he bought an old copper
teapot. I considered
a pair of porcelain
geese, one of which
was marked damaged,
but when I looked,
I couldn’t find
the flaw.