Rebecca Martin
Two women sit sketching
In the Enlightenment wing
Of the British Museum.
They sketch on the ground
Floor, just below the mummies.
Above, the modest males surround
The single, unwrapped female.
She is the only peeled away cadaver—
So separated, people can look,
Point, indicate the
places
Where her breasts had been.
The women sketch two peace swans,
With white necks gracefully draped in
The sparkling pearls of a
Misbegotten Imperialism. The swans
are symbols, the sign instructs;
The hanging prisms, the rough anatomical
Sketches, the heads sealed
In jars: these are the Truth.
The two women sit, scratching
At things which are not there—
Creating in that blank space.
They flank the long glass case,
One on either side. I sit apart,
On a bench, holding my stomach
As I complete their triangle.
I watch them consider the symbolic swans
And remember a dream I
had days ago.
In the dream I stumbled
And screamed, screamed, screamed
For the veil—begged for anything
To cover my wretched body
Which dripped with dirtied blood.