After Marina Abramović

If given honey, if given a scalpel, what then?
Our choices are laid out before us:

bread, wine, grapes, a pistol,
and a bullet.

A child on his father’s shoulders
stares over a sea of people.

The room busies with murmuring
before everyone goes mute.

The time is ours,
the woman is ours.

Men in collared shirts begin to choose:
a rose, a feather, a whip.

Women in evening makeup
cross their arms

and choose: a cake, a razor blade,
a handkerchief.

Someone covers their eyes.
Someone leaves.