RACHEL HADAS
Greek Gold
Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 1994
fo r Joan Mertens
Penises erect
if
you stoop to squinny,
two rams nose to nose on a golden bracelet
face of[ That their bodies have been distilled to
heads, genitalia
gives the leaps fresh urgency. A demotic
tarnished silver version I bought in Delphi
used to catch my delicate wrist-skin in be-
tween the two muzzles.
Stoically I suffered this painful pinching
for some years; then didn't. My left wrist wore a
watch; the other hand seemed best unencumbered:
I might be writing.
Eros, next, astride a plump dove. Or rather
Erotes, for these are a pair of pendant
earrings. Worn, they both would have swayed, suspended,
the baby rider
leaning forward eagerly, rocking, bobbling,
shadows shifting, cheek onto neck and shoulder
of the wearer at the least hint of motion.
And what is trembling
over here? The earrings sat still; they only
swayed in the soft gusts of imagination.
But this wreath, gold foil, with its oakleaves, acorns,
bee, and cicadas,
, faintly shudders even beneath protective
panes of glass: the ahh a bewitched beholder
might expel? A breath from beyond the gallery
stolidly guarded?
