First Time at the Guggenheim

New York City, New York

I’ve heard that if your four-year-old 

can draw it, then it must not be 

art, which I’ve never believed. 

But even if it’s true 

that little fingers dirtied with

different colors could fill a canvas 

or twist thin wire 

into relatively simple geometric figures, 

then so what? 

And though no four-year-old is waiting 

for me to come home, 

my MFA thesis often feels like a baby—

the way it cries

when it’s neither critiqued nor revised,

and now as I curl 

around the museum, ascending 

past Manet and Degas,

Gaugin and Matisse, Rothko and LeWitt,

I pause and gaze 

at Calder’s Red Lily Pads 

above 

and, watching them move with the currents 

of air,

am reminded of the planetary mobile

that used to hang 

above my crib and am once again 

small and floating,

fingers ready to grip the clown-red leaves 

and, light and giggly,

feeling as big as art, I look over

all, refusing 

to come down.