Escape Artist  

(I can't sleep, the coast is clear—
so, I'll try to describe it ...)

In the middle of America
and the outside of any family
or friendliness
or even something a little bit interesting
I'd hide out in the art gallery;
FREE! colorful, lively, smart ... quiet. 

It was gray marble cool
(the dim blue Henry Moore room, a/c jets flying green ribbons)
in the hot, slow, sun-blind, rattling box-fan, all tv sets on
and laugh-tracking through the apartment house
(upstairs downstairs, left and right) walls—
noisy summer.

And, it was

yellow haystack warm
(the red Van Gogh room, heat-vents humming like toasters)
in the snow-buried time going on and on
tv still always ON
Hamburger Helper hovering
in the unventilated dragging on and on and on and cold—
muffled winter.

By some big miracle or maybe small crime
I got out of the middle of America
and across the sea to Paree.

I found out about the Musée d’Orsay— 
I loved it so much I wanted to live there!
In the 80s, I hid in the bathroom for 7 months 

(the one downstairs, killing time at night
reading French political magazines) 
before they caught me, and even then 
I told the cops 

that I was an installation piece. 

Then they deconstructed me. 

Later, I threw away the political magazines
and my mother finally died.
An election, a family reunion—just temporary.

But I'll never give up on art. 

(Uh oh, gotta go. I hear the night guard 
coming this way, clicking his clicker. Later ...)