The Song of Love, Giorgio de Chirico, 1914

1.

In the abandoned city, someone has nailed a red latex glove to a wall.  Someone left the relentless roundness of a green wooden ball perpetually out of reach of the red glove.  Before leaving, someone affixed a marble head to the wall.  Look at it, how it stares endlessly upon the empty city.  Someone left the front door to their apartment open, taking only a passport, a wax apple, a pair of scissors.  In the dining room, someone cut deep into the table: Come, dwell inside this body, that I might leave. 

2.

Forgive me because I am only a cheap bust of Apollo, sings the marble head, the voice sounding like iron insects chewing on iron leaves.  And therefore, I am not infinite, a crime that contaminates all who dwell here.

3.

The departing locomotive expels a curdled cloud of steam, thick and frothy.  On the train, passengers cannot remember if it’s time to wake, or speak, or dream.  A green ball rolls about underneath the seats and bumps into unmoving feet.  The train horn wails like a baby stuffed inside a dented tuba.  The woman in the red velvet turban and red velvet gloves nudges her husband, who’s nodded off again, still clutching his newspaper.   Listen, she says.  That song, leaking from your left ear.  Haven’t we heard it somewhere before, dear?