Modern problem, #1

A guy drifted to the front of the crowd

Of people wondering what to do

While looking at Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa”

And made a huge gash in its poplar panel.

In the days following everyone was distraught;

Recent viewers spoke to news anchors

About a knowing melancholy noticed in her eyes.

The Louvre had thousands of visitors

Dressed up as fair Lisa herself, with tears

Rolling over their half-cocked smiles.

Scholars forwent analysis, gesturing only

To the unexplainable enchantment

Felt in the presence of a masterpiece.

Then a man in a suit walked into a grey room,

Beaming at cameras, and told us not to worry.

For our victim was a faultless facsimile,

3D printed decades ago in a lab–

The original locked away for preservation.

They wheeled it out to a frenzied applause–

Until a hollowness descended on the room.