Parabolas

I turn the corner and confronted, gasp, 
taking in the installation art in front of me.

Rays of thick, late morning light fall across 
a pair of translucent parabolas,
catching the dancing duo en flagrante 
as they tango in a glazed ramekin,
their glowing visages reflect 
back at the viewer the luminescence, just-so,
evoking Girl With a Pearl Earring,
if those delicate lobes Vermeer painted 
held crystal, not a sheen from the seas.

I stand back from the piece; 
seek a fresh point of view, 
all the better to further understand the work.
Shifting to my right, I look from this new vantage, 
I observe faint outer bands of velvet penubra ripple across
the candy shell surface of vitreous kiln-fired porcelain, 
the receiving vessel itself proud, stiff, glossy and impermeable.

The lovers' presence here alone casts an air of scandal
transgressive in their pairing, in their lingering, yet undaunted:
the leader drapes sultry shadows 
over the diamond brilliance of their daintier partner.

My vision blurs and clears as I squint and
cock my head, shoulder meeting ear in confusion.
The artist's message is not fully clear, 
and I never got through Art History, 
much to my Grandma's dismay.

My insufficient education notwithstanding,
but I take this dynamic sculpture to mean: 

This is a Statement. 
            We Are Here!
                     Pay Attention to Us. 
                            You Cannot Look Away.

A pair of noir stylized daisies catch my eyes.
I recall the still of a Vietnam War-era hippy holding a flower 
up to the faces of a long line of soldiers, 
themselves equipped with bayonnet-outfitted riffles,
it becomes clear as transparent, molded polymers 
rendered both personal and public,
fragile and fierce.

I see now, it is a protest piece, of course.
The pair is cha-chaing for liberty, searching for
freedom in the form of feral buccal surfaces.

Conformity to straight teeth is not the point; 
the artist and their medium conspire;
the plastic prisons of Invisalign 
will not contain her multitudes.

My own patriarchal, capitalistic, 
Westernized straightened teeth 
meet now in a grim line, 
though I take care not to grind my molars.

I raise my phone to memorialize this composition.
Then I dash off a terse text:
"You left your Chompers. See Photo for Evidence."

And no.
I will not drop them off at 3rd period.