A sight-reading child,
I thrilled to the image
sheathed in a word— 

            elephant—

the elongated contour,
the tall l, h, and t,
transporting me to an African 

            savannah,

to baobab trees and a striped big top,
a sequined gymnast in arabesque
on a blanketed, thick-skinned back. 

            Circus

of the preposterous—who created
your enormous folds? That thousand-
muscled trunk, your euphonium call? 

            Who

imagined such cleverness, your two tons
of brawn balanced on legs like pillars?
And yet, in our flawed world, you were 

            not prized.

Consider de Brunhoff’s bowler-hatted,
green-suited Babar, and Hannibal,
whose passion for war led you, 

            gentle behemoth,

across the Alps, exploited
your instinct to charge, your
fierce facade. Your roaring 

            potential.

                …the object is not to make art,
                but to be in the wonderful state which makes art inevitable.

                                                —Robert Henri: The Art Spirit
 

For an appetizer, try olives à la Picasso,
            one-eyed, two-dimensional, tart yet satisfying, 

while a salad Gauguin offers a lush green display,
            accented in deep reds, fleshy oranges, 

sound of birdsong, the dressing citron-scented.
            Select a wine as velvety and complex as an O’Keeffe 

poppy, with the bouquet of a Santa Fe sunset.
            Soup of choice might be the Paul Klee mixed-media 

delight, polychromatic and hieroglyph-noodled.
            For the pasta of the day, try Miro’s dream-like swirls 

smothered in a surrealist sauce, the plate edged
            with feathered parsley, followed by entrée Edward Hopper, 

two lamb chops in rectangles of light, lying separately
            on a bed of lettuce, their eyes averted, the room silent. 

For an extravagant finish, order a Dada dessert:
            Hans Arp’s biometric baked Alaska, chilled to decadency, 

and coffee then, of course, poured from a rococo-etched
            silver pot to accompany your sigh as a waitress 

in a Degas gauze and satin skirt floats a bill to your table.
            It’s not for a song, this lyrical melding of food and art.