“Can I go home yet?”Such a small voice for a big statue
On a grey stool in the cornera British Museum guard yawnsand turns away from the conversation.Maybe this happens every day.
“Where’s home?” I whisper.“Where the sea eats the sky,where the shells have lost their voices.”
A charioteer taps my shoulder.“Me too. Have you come with horseswild enough to drive us back to Hellas?No one needs us here.”
Across Room 115 they queue politely: a jade dragon, a gold l lama, a bronze king, a silk princess, a whale bone chessman,an ivory dildo, a granite Buddha whose smile has long since flown, the inevitable mummy an alabaster bishop, an ebony judge,
like I have the keys to a Magic Busto repatriate every exhibit to its ruin.
The British Museum guard excavatesa nostril and checks his watch.There’s still an age to pass before lunch.
***
Photo by Rohan Rangaswami on Unsplash