Painted a face across the mask

Today I finally saw the Sackler Museum's "Gods in Color: Painted Sculptures of Classical Antiquity." My father is in love with Cycladic figurines, as sharply angled as Art Deco, scoured white or painted geometrically in red ochre and azurite blue. The reconstructed bronze head of a youth with darkly corroded hair and inlaid gold lips and brows, iris-ringed eyes of glass and glaucous stone, made me think of My Brother Michael. None of these statues gaze into the past, remotely, time-blinded. Their clothes are intricately bordered, their arms flushed from the sun; their eyes are all focused on things you can't see. They look too bright. I love them.

My poem "Reliquiae," written last January for nineweaving, is eligible for the Fourth Annual Pedestal Readers' Awards. So vote, if you feel like it! There's other good stuff there, too.

Tomorrow, Arisia!