pants in the family and the setting of the scene:

––your wife is at home waiting dinner for you, but

you're looking at a painting in a museum of art across town.

but you're doing more than looking, you're studying it, squinting

your eyes to decrease the value of middle tones, and nonchalantly

putting your thumb-up at arm's length in front of the picture plane

for a sense of depth and juxtaposition, or in a fleeting, comic pantomime

to see what your thumb will look like promenading the grassy knoll during

"A Sunday Afternoon On the Island of La Grande Jatte",––

but it’s late in the day, and the museum’s closing soon,

and you haven’t figured anything out, and you’ve got to get home

where you know the kids have been pains-in-the-ass all day long,

and for sure you’re gonna hear about it from the madwoman at the sink

who was once the grace of your life, and you know you'll have to

try like hell to avoid flying objects,–––   would you say you've applied

any element of a defensive posture gleaned from your observations of 

"A Sunday Afternoon On the Island of La Grande Jatte"?