The Museum of Fine Arts

Every Saturday, my mother would bring me here
and while she taught her studio classes,I'd get myself lost on purpose,
starting at the pyramids,
the tiny clay slaves
I'd watch till I'd feel the rope burns on my shoulders,
the gritty sand between my teeth
and there was no shame in flinching,
in wanting to cry out.
All day I'd take wrong turns, knowing
in four hours or so, I'd find my way
back to Greece, to the same boy on a pedestal,
the small of his back, tilt
of his head, the gaze in his eyes
as if staring across a sea.
I needed to know such a place existed, a huge building
where I could be alone
without being ashamed of it, where loneliness
gave an edge to all I saw, made each curve
in the marble purer, each muscle
even more bravely exposed,
I wandered the empty halls
and cold basement rooms where no one visited