Sympathies

After Robert Mapplethorpe shot the tulips and calla lilies,
the book says,
he did not arrange them in a vase, or the vase in his apartment,
but trashed them immediately.

The book also says that Matisse never slept
with his odalisques
since it would be too much
like devouring the oranges one has a vision of.

When the American corporal fell backwards from the balcony,
through the doorway, to the floor, his blood
running into the apartment,
Robert Capa shot him, and changed cameras.

There is someone in me who approves of this.
Yesterday, at the I
CP, there was someone else in me who wished
art were otherwise.

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