The little picture of it.

Everyone who goes to the Louvre remarks about the regrettably human
Scale of it, as though it were simply a crowded girl you cared for

But couldn't reach any way you tried.

In bed children often form this basic understanding by looking
At the cheeks on the Moon, satisfied to see
A far off face, no more distressed by what might be

A smile than by what might not.

There must be some kind of dereliction taking places when we admire a picture. Children have
No sense of a classic.  Nothing ever came before,

So everything is happening, only somehow richer.

There, now.  Look at the braids growing around the little picture
Like a maternal python. The glossy curl frames
The expectation protectively.

You know, were an expectation simply a jawline.