The building itself seems amused
by the idea of a straight line.
Mirrors wink.
Tiles grin.
A giant wind-up figure pauses,
mid-thought.
Inside, a bicycle made of spoons
leans confidently against nothing.
A visitor laughs,
then stops, unsure
if laughing is allowed.
It is.
Paintings speak in their own dialects:
cardboard, glitter, prayer, obsession.
These are not polite works.
They want to be seen
the way secrets do.
I linger before a ship built entirely
from toothpicks:
thousands of small yeses
holding one impossible shape.
Someone whispers,
How long do you think that took?
as if time were
the most surprising material.
Outside, the harbor glints again,
but here the water has competition.
Creativity spills everywhere,
untrained, unashamed,
doing exactly
what it wants.
This museum does not ask
where you studied,
only whether you are paying attention.
It leaves you slightly altered,
like Baltimore itself:
a city that keeps proving
there is more than one way
to make something beautiful
stand.
David Anson Lee is a poet, philosopher, and physician from Texas with work published in Right Hand Pointing, Unbroken Journal, The Scarred Tree, and other literary journals. He explores place, memory, and human experience through lyrical and meditative poetry that engages both the mind and the senses.