No. This subtle quiver inheres in golden
foil and wire we bend to, not in us gazers,
and above all not in what's called the Real World
beyond the doorway.
Leave the bees half hidden in trembling foliage.
Monumental, in an adjacent corner,
an ornate Italian amphora offers
white-heightened paintings.
Here's Achilles perched on a little campstool.
Patiently he waits for his new-forged armor
to be handed up to him by the helpful
sea-nymphs his mother
can command. This nereid holds his helmet;
that one pulls a greave from an unseen warehouse;
still another, parasol-wielding, rides a
genial dolphin.
Look and look again. Yes, the parasol is
thrust (what insouciance!) through the dolphin's blowhole.
Do real dolphins have blowholes? Is the last nymph
riding sidesaddle?
I no longer know. But I do remember
overhearing two tourguides. First (to children):
"Is Achilles dressing to go to dinner?
What are they bringing?"
"Helmet! Shield!" the children reply in chorus.
No one minds, apparently, that he's naked.
Then the second, speculating to adults:
"Seal-rings so tiny
and details so fine that the master craftsmen
must have employed children." Or were the master
sculptors, carvers, miniaturists, myth-mongers
all of them children?
