Eve

I was on my way out of the Detroit Institute of Arts, feeling submerged, drowned by the murals of Rivera, the portraits of Picasso, the ballerinas of Degas, when I saw her.

She was tall, lit up by spotlights, but instead of claiming her space, she seemed to want to shrink away. She bowed her head, her face in shadow. Her thighs, she held tightly together. Her breasts, she covered with her arms. The placard said she was hugging herself in shame.

Eve, a sculpture by Auguste Rodin for The Gates of Hell.