After Dark
Anna Egan Smucker
In galleries around the world
we are taking off our stiff collars,
massaging our necks, gossiping about the day’s tourists―
those who got too close, those we wish had come closer.
While down the hall, Chagall’s green goats are turning blue,
purple horses morphing green, acrobats and angels spinning, falling
as Giacometti’s Walking Man hops and skips more than he walks.
And oh, those Dutch grapes, ripe cheeses, goblets of wine.
While the harpsichord and lute are tuning up,
we are eating, drinking, flirting, frolicking.
And you go on thinking we’re long dead.
About the Author
Anna Egan Smucker is the author of nine books. No Star Nights (Knopf) won the International Reading Association Children’s Book Award. Her newest, Fallingwater: The Building of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Masterpiece, co-authored with Marc Harshman, was a Junior Library Guild Selection and an Amazon Book of the Month. Recipient of a West Virginia Arts Commission Artist Fellowship Award, her poems have been published in several anthologies and literary journals. Her chapbook, Rowing Home, was published by Finishing Line Press. A resident of Bridgeport, West Virginia, she is currently working on a full-length poetry collection.