Private Wing Exile

We hang in the hush of a sealed chamber,
our colors muted beneath climate-perfect air,
the keeper’s gloved adjustments of our frames

the only touch we’ve known in years.

Beyond these marble-throated walls
we imagine footsteps, crowds,
the soft hum of breath that once warmed our varnish,
but here, value replaces vision,
and we are owned,

not witnessed.

The canvas aches with absence.
Pigment longs for the eyes
it was mixed to meet.
We feel ourselves fading inward,
our stories curling tighter into the frame,
as the collector counts a rising yearly worth
we can no longer translate.

He measures us by numbers;
we measure him by silence,
and both keep growing.

We remember the painter’s hand,
the trembling intention,
the pulse of a soul poured into each stroke.
Now that legacy lies dormant,

folded in perpetual twilight,
while a paid guardian
polishes thresholds, checks sensors,
maintains the refined air we suffocate in.

We are masterpieces in mourning,
alive only in the memory of creation.

But…

On the rare day
the lock yields and our personal spotlight is switched on,
when the owner brings a guest or two
to parade his vault of ghosts,
something stirs.

The bulbs thrum their faint electric heartbeat,
stirring bring a small resurrection.
And in that shimmer we feel less alone.
For even here, hidden from the world,
we keep each other company.

Yes…

With a burst of modern neon spirit beside us,
echoing the bold pop‑palette of Warhol’s lineage;
old masters of the 17th and 18th centuries
brood in the luminous shadows,
brushwork steeped in the milenia of breath and grief.

We share the air they once commanded,
their genius our only conversation,
a silent fellowship of exiled brilliance

as we mourn the visitor’s departure.

Such is the reverence for the non-patrons of art,

 those who have waited lifetimes
for a chance…

The visit they are unlikely to ever realize.