by Julia Griffin

For Tam

“Russian gallery security guard accused of drawing eyes on … Anna Leporskaya’s work
Three Figures.”
—BBC News

Three figures, faceless for some hundred years,
Were given eyes of ballpoint. Had they tears,
Let’s hope they shed them in a timely gush,
Evading the eraser and the brush;
But I suspect they stretched those doodles wide,
Rejoicing in a sense so long denied.
“Look! I can see!” they thought, but did not say
(That’s an ambition for another day).