with apologies to Robert Browning
Look here, sir. There she stands as if alive:
my barren girl with the small hips, her flesh
of Allach porcelain, the brownest eyes
I ever pickled. Her pose I modeled after
the pure white forms of Greco-Roman sculpture,
though her expression I could not efface—
the eyes a bit too wide, the mouth still saying,
“What are you doing with that needle, Doctor?”
Still, she’s a beauty. One gets so lonely sometimes,
walled in here with the starving prisoners
and drunken guards… She keeps me company
and lets me talk, is never bored of me—
we have such conversations! But I sense
you grow impatient. Do excuse me, sir.
The operating room is right this way…
(Ah, you’ve brought chocolates for my twins—how kind!)