Dissecting Art
by and published in Edition Four of Pomegranate
My mother is always last
out of the art gallery. Waiting
with my family on the cold sandstone steps,
I wonder what she sees. Does the paint
perform for her: do smiles twitch on varnished faces,
flowers cough up scent? Is the secret
of her thick glasses that she can make out detail
like goosebumps on the clammy nudes?
Or maybe it’s her professional duty
to bandage up blood-stained knights,
pronounce martyrs legally dead.
It could be argued
that she’s just being polite: turning pages
of an eccentric family photo album, saying
‘Mm, lovely,’ ‘How long were you there for’
‘You could get that eye removed on the NHS.’
But no… I suspect she’s flinching.
These perverse vaccinations of beauty!
The more injections- French afternoons,
wet shadows, plums ripe for a hundred years,
glimpses bottled in a clamour of colours-
the more
at risk you are.
Julia Rampen
Julia Rampen lives in Edinburgh, Scotland and is currently on her gap year saving up to travel the world. She started writing poetry in 2004 and has been published in The Rialto and New Writing Scotland 24. As well as poetry, she enjoys playing in loud orchestras, hearing scandalous stories and walking places.