The Palace at 4 a.m. by Katie Kurtz

The Palace at 4 a.m. by Alberto Giacometti (Switzerland) 1932

The Palace at 4 a.m. 
after Alberto Giacometti
 
He loved her so he built her a complication of fragile scaffoldings. The earliest version was made of matchsticks but the slightest breeze tore it apart. Later he composed it in the thinnest of wood and of wire and glass. He hung her vertebrae inside a cage. (Oh that angle skews. Let’s leave that alone for now.) A glass plank slices horizontal at its centre. Were she to walk it, it would lead her back and forth and back and forth. (That skewed angle – an optical illusion? Depending?) To the left: three vertical boards that could be doors. Not much else besides his mother standing there alone.

Katie Kurtz
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Katie Kurtz is a writer living in Seattle. She has written extensively about art for publications such as the Stranger in Seattle, the (now defunct) San Francisco Bay Guardian, Art Papers, Make & Craft Magazines, and others. She is currently working on a true crime investigation.