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Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

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Gill Rennard

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The National Gallery on the First Day of a Heat Wave

Propelled into the lobby by a revolving door,
into voices heavy and oppressive as the heat,
into something resembling a Monet.
You can’t look at this work or that, because others
press into the blurred edges of your vision,
and if you stand too close, brushstrokes are crude and thick.

So you step back, only to find the curved thighs
and round buttocks of, say, Venus as she gazes
into Cupid’s mirror, broken again and again
by spiked hair or an oversized hat, or blocked
by the couple who stand three inches in front of you
not even looking at the painting

and your clothes are clammy on your skin
and your hands grimy with the heat
and sweat gathers in drops and trickles
down your forehead or leg, so you think
an insect is walking on you.
So it makes you think:

if you saw this painting in a cool white room
with natural light and carpet and no people and silence,
it would be like,
at this moment,
splashing your face with iced water.

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