At the Gardner Museum in Boston,
you can still see the empty frames hanging
where the great robbery took place.
Vermeer. Rembrandt.
Degas. Manet.
Stopping to inspect the faded wallpaper
inside vacant frames, I pitied
the nearby paintings.
Art patrons and the inquisitive
come from all over to ogle
the unsolved.
No one pauses to see
these surviving canvases.
The artists never aiming
for their art to be an also-ran.
Imagining
how these paintings must feel
unworthy of theft
destined to remain the next in line,
a bridesmaid, or the on-deck batter
after a walk-off home run.