Robbery at the Musée Magritte, by Sandi Stromberg

The Lovers, by René Magrille (Belgium) 1928

Robbery at the Musée Magritte

The day started as innocent
                          as white roses. Brussels cloudy,
             cold. Magritte beckoning with his
 
cloth-covered faces, a pipe that
                          is a pipe that he said wasn’t.
             In two short hours, he had robbed us
 
of Reality, called it
                          a boulder floating in the sky,
             given it the face of a green apple.
 
And in the turmoil of mantle clocks and locomotives,
                          blind women, ravens, empires of light,
             the sea, we lost ourselves and then
 
each other. When panic set in
                          and we could barely breathe,
             our hearts inhaled and exhaled.
 
Separately, we searched
                          labyrinthine galleries, as invisible
             to one another as Magritte’s Lovers.

Sandi Stromberg

Sandi Stromberg led a nomadic life in five different countries before arriving in Houston—where putting down roots in gumbo earth has been challenging but worthwhile. In January 2019, she discovered the biweekly challenges from The Ekphrastic Review and a passion for combining words and art. Her essay, "My Ekphrastic Odyssey," appears in New Signs for Old Symbols: Ekphrastic Poetry Anthology 2022 from the Friendswood Public Library. Her poetry has been nominated three times for a Pushcart and twice for Best of the Net. Recent publications include Panoply, The Ekphrastic Review, MockingHeart Review, San Pedro River Review, easing the edges: a collection of everyday miracles, and in Dutch in the Netherlands in Brabant Cultureel.