Touch Gallery: Joan of Arc

By Mary Szybist

The sculptures in this gallery have been

carefully treated with a protective wax

so that visitors may touch them.

—exhibitions, the art institute

of chicago

Stone soldier, it's okay now.

I've removed my rings, my watch, my bracelets.

I'm allowed, brave girl,

to touch you here, where the mail covers your throat,

your full neck, down your shoulders

to here, where raised unlatchable buckles

mock-fasten your plated armor.

Nothing peels from you.

Your skin gleams like the silver earrings

you do not wear.

Above you, museum windows gleam October.

Above you, high gold leaves flinch in the garden,

but the flat immovable leaves entwined in your hair to crown you

go through what my fingers can't.

I want you to have a mind I can turn in my hands.

You have a smooth and upturned chin,

cold cheeks, unbruisable eyes,

and hair as grooved as fig skin.

It's October, but it's not October

behind your ears, which don't hint

of dark birds moving overhead,

or of the blush and canary leaves

emptying themselves

in slow spasms

into shallow hedgerows.

Still bride of your own armor,

bride of your own blind eyes,

this isn't an appeal.

If I could I would let your hair down

and make your ears disappear.

Your head at my shoulder, my fingers on your lips—

as if the cool of your stone curls were the cool

of an evening—

as if you were about to eat salt from my hand.

Source: Incarnadine (Graywolf Press, 2013)