In the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen
In the K20,
Beckmann’s The Night
was hung too near the café;
we both observed this
though used the café anyway—
I ordered Käse Torte, confidently
(then had to be corrected).
They had furniture like Rietveld’s Steltman chair,
the one that looks so good in gardens;
I sat still and wondered—like George Costanza—
if the waiter liked me,
which happens so much more here.
Caffeinated, we watched The Night again:
it seemed deracinated
on those whitewashed walls;
guards stood too close,
people talked, bitte, alles klar, genau;
and what we’d gone there for,
seemed now, not to be the same
as what we’d sought—
our presence a mere
confirmation of the The Night’s
existence; not—as once I’d thought—
the culmination of some felt experience.