Arrested Flight

In the town of  my youth, the sky is always blue. The cobbled streets are coated with Mars-colored dust, or what I imagine Mars to be, an orb of windy red-brown dirt, its life locked under a frozen sea. Here, a ceaseless ocean zephyr stirs the dArreust, and if I stop to listen, I can hear surf. In my palm I cradle one cobble, resilient through millennia, its dusty surface infant soft.

I wander down my favorite street, narrow like a byway in the Trastevere. Along the way are costume shops. In their windows, rakish and beguiling mannequins cock fake legs in coquettish poses, suggesting to me I need to either dance or fuck. In one shop window a frozen woman wears a tall black-feathered mask, her pose a seduction I’m familiar with and a menace I welcome. Her blurred red mouth is—I imagine, I hope—about to pronounce. Other faux females stand weighted in gowns laden with turquoise and fushia sequins, cast knees poking out artful slits. Through ochre chiffon sleeves they raise their plaster arms in the cactus pose of Minoan snake goddesses.

Further along is the shop of anointments. Someone has positioned bottles and bowls of amber fluid around a ceaseless fountain of rose-scented water.

Next is the antique store, its show window always dusty, the display dimly lit. I cup my hands, blocking the loud sun, to see standing lamps with elaborate tassled shades and some mystery wooden device with a handle. At the lamps’ feet, arranged cast gold scarabs seem to scamper. Some small as real beetles, others big as paperweights, they tumble in hasty static poses.

Ahead at street’s end is the art museum with its painted fluted columns, a pair of gryphons on the roof. I love them. I always have—those garish raptor stances, gnarly in their frigid threats. Are they heralds or sentinels? Am I welcomed or warned away? Either way I must enter to view the gold-winged statue.

The museum’s cool dark interior is a relief from the Mediterranean broil, the ceiling high and arced. I glance past Blue Boy, in his satin knickers, one haughty akimbo arm, to find my favorite—the bird girl on her pedestal.

Part Egyptian, part art deco. Small and tender, compressed in her tight metal form, spiraled for action. Her white pedestal nearly dwarfs her. But not. The solid brass wings razored back. Black hyphens incise her eye corners and the reminges of her wings. She crouches, poised urgently.