- She cannot always be there for him -

"To unlock the box
was not an easy task..."

She found him
in some sort of coffin,
a popular eighteenth century object,
probably from Taïwan,
made of crushed oysters.

The agoraphobic artist lay in it,
- motionless -
although he spoke a lot
of things he could not see.

He wasn't born blind,
he just lost his eyes.
He wasn't born deaf,
but he conjured up
injuries and meningitis,
yellow and scarlet fever,
asking her in strange ways
to research and deliver.

Despite his loss of function
- or feeling -
for reasons she ignored,
he tried to keep her near,
begging, urging,
then screaming.

Was he unaware of
her claustrophobic nature?

Still, she tried to aid,
and late one night,
under a new moon,
she opened the lid
and pulled him out.

Covered in cold sweat,
shaking like a lamb,
a newborn in a candlelit garden,
he took his first, deep breath.

She watched him crawl in pain,
then take trembling steps outside,
fighting memories of paralysis
and crying like a child.

Now, she couldn't help him more,
she had her life to live,
her skin, arms and bones,
an eyeful of dreams to fulfill.

"She unlocked the box,
not an easy task,
to help the re-birth of a man
left there to grow,
in freedom and art."