We were between armor and mummies
on the ground floor,
weighing preservation in a tin
vs humidor,
the hollow man vs stuffing for
a sarcophagus—
forgetting for a moment there were
portraits, sebaceous,
upstairs . . . here was, if not great art,
the artistic object,
cut to the measure of man (and child).
Horrors collect
no dust; rows of swords in side rooms
and outmoded firearms
impressed us less than the siren cresting
with unsettling charms