by
Loren Lamothe
During a visit to
the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston I found myself standing before
one of those gilded frames that are always hanging in museums. The difference, in this case, was that the
frame was empty. A small placard
explained that it had previously held a painting stolen from the museum in
1990, when thieves dressed as police officers made off with about a quarter of
a million dollars in valuable artwork. Because Gardner specified that no
changes could be made in the collection after her death, the empty frames have
remained in place. So there I was,
standing around with a bunch of other museum-goers, staring at absence. It was a strange, almost surreal experience
and the poem grew out of my attempt to write about it.