Victoria Van Huystee

April 1504

Dearest Leonardo,

tell me now my darling, if you are still Pliable to me;
are you only a ziggurat- sharp and angular,
raising ever taller to the sky
and away from me?

do tell me if we are but to be ephemera, drifting,
not to be saved within the baroque delusion of our laughter.
is this joy mere artifice? our smiles
a distorted illusion through the zoopraxiscope

we lived once in our Belle Époque, our life
a sweet assemblage of intertwined fingers-
of whispered daydreams, of walks
on days with skies like ocean swirls of gouache,
and picnics in the grasses- an impasto on earth’s palette.

the Merz to whence our days have headed make me
wonder if the brocade draped ‘round our shoulders has chance still to lighten,
if the frottage of your smile on my memories
will be bright enough to become a daguerreotype, forever in my mind,
so the lavish scene of our Rococo love story
will be not forgotten beneath the weight of the winds of time.

tell me what is to become of us,
for I can no longer see the painter at work.
has our portrait of perfection received its final brush stroke,
only for us to hang lonely on a wall
before the eyes of curious lovers?
tell me if this museum is my new eternity.
shall I be left to brave this canvas in solitude?

Forever,
Your Mona Lisa