NOW YOU SEE ME, NOW YOU DON'T Poem by Eldrid Lunden

(Two poems based on an exihibition by Per Maning in the Oslo Museum of Contemporary Art, Autumn 2002)
Untitled, 1

The baboon Maggie is counting her fingers
Again and again
She seems to arrive at four
Her glance seeks her audience
Tentatively? Desperately?
There is something about this abstraction
that will not become concrete


Untitled, 2

The man's face is almost entirely skin
skin, pores in the skin, and skin
The mouth is speaking and speaking, without
a sound. Smiling, smiling. Suddenly
we become anxious about something we
cannot hear