Two Poems

..................Performances

.........................A.

Of the three versions for piano of Debussy’s Images on YouTube
that are played by the estimable Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli,
two sensibly bear the License Category of Music, while the third
is designated Comedy, for reasons I tried to discern. However
after multiple auditions, I found that my ear was not finely
tuned enough to find a distinguishing humorousness compared
to the others, even when “tipped off” that it is there. Nonetheless,
observe that I am exhibiting a discreet smile at the final note —
so as not to seem insensible to the maestro’s intentions, and to
communicate this to the unseen beings who scrutinize me from afar.

.........................B.

In Juarez, the statue of the Virgin Mary that Bette Davis
is beseeching for a favor is seen only from the back —
luxuriant hair tumbled down on her shoulders,
robe draped over her right arm raised in benediction . . .
Wait! You don’t have to be a theologian to know
that the Virgin always covers her hair, and that her arms are
more often at her sides, palms outward, or are clasped in prayer.
Bette is in fact addressing Mary’s Son! — but pretending otherwise
in complicity with the camera. Jesus, too, must suspend disbelief,
for no one on the set thinks that Bette is the real Empress of Mexico.

............Exposé

Archaically, a femme d’artiste could denote
an artist’s wife whose overriding calling
was total devotion to her husband’s art.
One such femme, whose spouse competed
with Cézanne in the painting game, back in the day,
had complained that since she bought the fruit
for her husband’s still lifes at a much better
market than Mme Cézanne did, how could the latter’s
husband paint still lifes that were considered superior?

I recalled this anecdote browsing at the Met one afternoon,
when I came face to face with this latter husband’s
Still Life with Apples and Pears. One of the pears,
the one on the far left, looked to be a little past its
prime, so — no one else around at the moment —
I pushed my fingers lightly into the canvas, took
hold of the pear and deftly turned it around like so,
back to front. Sure enough, there were several
dark blemishes that blighted the unseen part of the fruit
and in a day or so would have completed the spoilage.
My curiosity satisfied, I turned the pear back around
and smoothed down the canvas. Perhaps after all some truth
had been revealed about Mme Cézanne’s frugality
in gathering her husband’s still-life components. But
before I could tell my friends, I learned that the Cézannes
were living apart in 1906, the year the picture was painted. I
had carried out my examination without knowing the facts,
thus risking arrest, humiliation, and exile from a major museum!