# Magasins du Louvre explained — Poetry

> Chapter companion for Poetry by Mina Loy.

## What happens

The poem presents a surreal, voyeuristic scene in a department store where glass-eyed dolls and mannequins dominate the space. Two cocottes (courtesans) pass through, their gazes shifting from the dolls to each other in a moment of intimate recognition, while the speaker's own eyes become entangled in the carpet pattern, ashamed at having witnessed something deeply private.

## Themes in this chapter

### Alienation and Belonging

The glass-eyed dolls and the cocottes' fleeting, surreptitious connection highlight the alienation of modern life and the search for intimacy.

### The Body and Mortality

The dolls' glass eyes and 'composite babies' evoke a lifeless, mechanical body, contrasting with the living but commodified bodies of the cocottes.

## Character check-ins

### Mary

Implied speaker or observer whose eyes are 'inextricably entangled with the pattern of the carpet' in shame.

## Key lines

> All the virgin eyes in the world are made of glass

All innocent, unseeing eyes are like glass—reflective but empty, unable to truly perceive.

_Opens and closes the poem, framing the theme of superficial vision and the impossibility of genuine sight._

> They alone have the effrontery to Stare through the human soul Seeing nothing

Only these glass eyes dare to look directly into the soul, yet they see nothing at all.

_Highlights the paradox of the gaze: the dolls' eyes appear to penetrate but are ultimately vacant._

> While mine are inextricably entangled with the pattern of the carpet As eyes are apt to be In their shame Having surprised a gesture that is ultimately intimate

My own eyes become lost in the carpet's design, as eyes often do when embarrassed after witnessing an intensely private moment.

_Captures the speaker's shame and the voyeuristic tension of the scene._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_17_se/chapters/magasins-du-louvre
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_17_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_17_se/chapters