The most scandalous ingredient of this famously scandalous

painting bought by the state of Franz Joseph I even before

it was finished, so goes the story, and hung in its narrow tall

 

frame in the capital’s most admired museum, a building 

competing with the palace itself and as dusty, if you ask

me, overlooking a sun-basted square filled with the dry heat

 

of the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, the ruler

of all the states and cities of the Habsburg Monarchy

including Spain and Bohemia, its most scandalous feature

 

is not the cheeky scene it portrays, the famous Kiss,

the man’s face invisible, her leg lifted, foot stretched 

toes bending, his hands holding her face, a radiant gem

 

as brilliant as the gold leaf background mixed with silver

leaf and flat without perspective as is true of such ecstasy

that tends to erase background and belonging, but the bitter

 

pervasive rumor nowhere confirmed yet trailing

the rich artwork that the artist used not just gold and oil 

to create the luscious luminous surface but included

 

a most plebeian component and not, as one would assume,

in the background but in the very varnish that covers 

the whole canvas he mixed in amber dust and cat piss.