OBJET d'ART

In the peace and quiet of the reference room, With all its locked cases of books on art— The names of the masters and their followers Traced on their backs in letters of goldThere, free to the beholder, open, unlocked, Was art itself—

The boy sat at the long study table in the library, His head on his blue-sweatered left arm,

Asleep.

The hand which held the idle gold pencil Lay relaxed:

The slim fingers of the oriental-

With long oval nails like delicate shells,

The veins faint under gold brown skin.

His ear, with its thin straight edge,

Was smooth and regular and close against his head, And soft as chamoix skin, or doe;

The thick sleek black hair

Ran down into the neck

Under a frayed shirt collar.

Relaxed in sleep.

Notebooks and study texts lay waiting,

Forgotten, unneeded;

The boy was far away,

And yet I could have touched him.

—

one

Peter Kane

22

2.2.