Glass: A Journal of Poetry Volume One Issue Three       

Peter D. Goodwin

A Poem Written While Watching Children Study Art In A Museum Instead Of Playing Outside

She sat the children in front of a wonderful marble frieze of a parade 
during a Bacchus Festival, telling them not to touch, not to annoy 
the guards, and not to fidget, asking the children what do they see, 
hinting to the children what it is that they are seeing.  A parade. Yes. 
Animals. yes. And what animals are they?  A horse. Yes.  A giraffe.  
Actually it is not a giraffe but a camel, see the hump.  And those 
two animals, which should be black not white, what are they?  
Panthers.  So she points out all the animals in this parade, holding 
kids’ shoulders, touching their hands, instructing them, ensuring 
that they do not fidget.  But still they fidget.  Never telling them 
about Bacchus, the God of wine, enthusiasm and excess
never telling them about King Pentheus, who did not believe 
in Bacchus or in religious enthusiasm, and tried to stop 
the Bacchus rites, and his Mother who, in her excitement 
did not recognize her son, the king, and stuck a spear 
in his belly, his Aunts tore off his limbs, his Mother, 
yes his Mother, tore off his head, and they ate his body parts, 
what a feast they had.  Now that is a tale 
that would have stopped 
the fidgeting.  Instead 
a boy asks, When do we eat?