Mona Lisa Vs. Absinthe*

A Spanish painter,
A Polish poet, and
An Italian nationalist
Walk into le bar . . .,
a Parisian bar in 1911.
Absinthe rounds,
The order of the day.
Sunlight optional.
Facial hair included.
All shade & no soap.
They throw their
Minds to the tight
Quartered & pinched
Wind. Two weeks
From this moment
Ghosts of Mona Lisa
Haunt a vacant wall
At the Louvre. La
Police claim “It was
The anarchists!” Art
Historians insist
It was Le boheme!
But miles away from
La Ville Lumière,
Political soothsayers
Predict a rupturing.
And half-way to
Florence, a former
Employee (of the
Louvre) hides out.
He says, Lunga vita
Al’ Italia! & Two
Years later, French
Investigators find
Him – le voleur, &
It’s all, WTF /
Putain! And before
Returning La Joconde,
She becomes Tuscan
Again, glowing to an
Orange prayer and
Singing Questo e per
Te, Leonardo! And
Those 3 boys never
Breathe together
Again. But they
Take silent turns
Braiding gray hairs
With fingertips of
Light.

* The incomparable Pablo Picasso, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, and the Italian nationalist Vincenzo Peruggia, who actually stole the painting and later tried to sell it on the black market.

Todd Fuller is curator and poet at the Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries. He is the author of two books, 60 Feet Six Inches and Other Distances from Home: the (Baseball) Life of Mose YellowHorse (Holy Cow! Press) and To the Disappearance (Mongrel Empire Press). He lives in Norman, Oklahoma with his wife, kids, dog, unwanted gophers, and ornery field mouse.