Cell (Three Marble Spheres)
(by Mary Jo Bang)

Louise Bourgeois, Cell (Three White Marble Spheres), 1993, glass, steel, marble, and mirror

Here it is, the box
We live in. The circular mirror
We look in. The crazy face
Of the day looking back with its blank
Brazen sky-high stare. The closed eye
Of the night looking in
On a dream where a storm is battering the blinds.
A boy of four comes and crawls into bed. This is an example
Of where the door of life is left open for a moment.
Time tumbles in
Its cylinder thimble,
Hour after innocent hour
And then it's morning again.
Some glass is for looking through,
Some is for seeing
Back. Every outline is a cage
One way or another. We stood here once so
We are what was
Contained in it.


(from The Eye Like a Strange Balloon, Grove Press, 2004)

Louise Bourgeois: Cell (Three White Marble Spheres), 1993,