the museum

waiting in line at the cafe, i place my order the man behind me does the same his voice so familiar i can't help but turn around. I i have seen him before but i do not know him, i turn back around and feel him lean towards me as he whispers "meet me at museum, risd museum" I don't acknowledge thinking that he must not be talking to me. I get my drink when i look about he is gone. I walk to my car and notice a note ..please meet me. I think how crazy this is and how i absolutely will not. I start driving towards town and there is a detour that brings right in front of the museum. i shake my head in disbelief and whisper no, no. but somehow i am parking.

as i walk into the lobby he is there, if he is surprised he doesn't show it. I don't say anything, somehow i feel like i am in my teens. we go up the elevator the door open's and we walk into the exhibition. he tries to speak but somehow my thin voice says " please can we just look around in silence" i am awkwardly confident but not really sure. I get lost in photographs, artifacts, so lost i forget he is there-no that is not true i am aware, he is standing a foot away yet i can feel his weight on me. we go into my favorite room full of impressionist paintings. i stare at the colors and the people on the canvases i almost hear them. I notice he is not looking at them in fact he had not really looked at anything, he stares at me " why aren't you looking at the art" he replies " i am" i want to laugh-no i want to tell him that those are wasted words that i had fallen for such words before, used by bald hairy italian men- common words, common men. instead i say every museum has bad art. I excuse myself to the ladies room, i wash my hands and face the water is cold. drying now i look in the mirror i recognize her. her wrinkles start to fade her skin becomes pale and lips the color of early raspberries. i look straight at her, i tell her no never again as i walk through the doors till i find myself outside walking to fast to call it a walk i find my car and my salvation.