Lacunae by Ross Thompson, written in Bangor during 2020 Lockdown
1.
In the abandoned Louvre that afternoon,
we gazed upon the rectangular space
where the Mona Lisa once hung before
she amscrayed, was volée, was replaced
by a transparent frame of bulletproof
glass entirely empty save for a few
sachets of silica gel, a slab
of climate-controlled nothingness
housing a phantom portrait: a blank
canvas rendered in vanishing
paint made up of brushstrokes so fine
they were negligible, points so small
they were invisible, disappeared
one feature at a time, headdress first,
then her pearls, next her eyelashes
and brows, then her enigmatic smile,
each part erased as if doused in pungent
turpentine. A masterpiece of absence.
2.
An hour later, in the museum café,
we ate substanceless croissants
and drank sugar-free lemonade,
neither of us breaking the dead air
until someone closed the tills, switched off the lights
and let us disappear into the dark.