Cultural Misappropriation

She sits enthroned in a room of her own
In a tall glass booth under an Egyptian dome
Her only companion the bust of the curator
Who ordered and paid for her appropriation

Her strangely angled crown
Alien
Overdrawn
Balances neatly the jut of her jaw

Two fat Germans censor her cell
‘Nein, nein,’ they yell and shout
Every time anyone pulls a camera out

Her plinth is aligned with the doorways
A corridor of galleries frame her
So she rules the entire floor
Her cool one-good-eye gaze
Commanding her presence over all we survey

How rude that she lives here
So far from her home
Even though there was never a throne there for her
Having never left the artist’s studio
Not even finished (that missing eye)
Nefertiti on the Spree not the Nile