In the museum where vision rules,
there are sculptures for the blind—
the same ones the sighted
can’t approach too close:
let a foot creep past the red line,
or poke your nose in the hollow
of some ancient nose—alarms wail.
Only looking is allowed till you feel yourself turn
into those stone eyeballs on long stems
dug out of a marble head from Greece.
The blind view sculptures with their fingers.
They trace a scar on the belly
of a Cycladic girl, the battle
of dragons on the backside
of a Korean mirror.
What arose thousands of years ago
they create anew, saying: pitcher, cup,
which they fill again with wine.
In their hands, strings of money-beads,
freed from the display, rattle gains and losses,
shady deals gone down.
A bronze knocker lends them its weight,
conjures up a door.
Try to open it in the dark.
