self-portrait as stolen goods

By Leonardo Chung

in the Great Court, beneath the British Museum’s
glass sky, webs of light capturing the first rays.
here, alone, each knot a rotten promise of return. 

footsteps echo in the museum’s echoing halls—
a pebble dropped in the reflection pool, rippling
through the colonial quiet. 

a blackbird’s feather curls 
around the Rosetta Stone, inked with the mantras
lashed by tongues. over each Mary Delany flower bud
my fingers dance, spiders weaving twilight webs
as they collect the erased voices.

nearby, the Elgin Marbles breathe, stone lungs
pulsing in chiseled strokes. my grandfather’s 
hand, a sculptor’s brush, the smell of oil 
as he paints a house. he told me stories printed 
deep in the marble, how their veins held echoes 
of conquered homes.

in the Egyptian wing, mummies sleep in linen 
cocoons, dreaming of sun-baked desert, while 
the lone Caryatid statue still weeps 
for her fellow sisters lingering in Greece.

dawn’s light creeps through the stained glass
like a thief, blinding relics, mocking the shadows. the artifacts
creak in protest—like lions stirring on the savannah, alive
with the roar of reparations. 

soon, the museum’s silence will shatter
into a thousand voices. i have been a ghost
among ghosts. a relic among relics. pieces
of my hands long to catch other silhouettes
in the conquered wake of this stolen cathedral.

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Leonardo Chung divides his time between Illinois and New Hampshire. He recently won first place in the 93rd Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition for a nonfiction essay and is a finalist for the 2024 Witness Literary Awards for poetry. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Epiphany, Portland Review, Atlanta Review, Sweet Lit, and many others.