Perhaps the urn was made all those years ago

not to hold oil, which it has never held, not

as the ground for the pictures, which

have chipped off, though a hand remains

unattached to a person, not to be carried

from place to place, though its handles are still

intact, but to dream of the museum,

and the museum attendants, daydreaming

in corners, and the mother, holding

the hand of the little girl in the itchy

red wool, passing the older girl a pencil,

to make a sketch of the urn.  Instead, the urn

dreams of a photographer, walking briskly

through the museum not looking

at the objects in the cases, or even at

the other people looking, but at the way

the ceiling lights are reflected in the glass.