White Center, 1950

The figs, arranged in                still life,
              as if by Chardin’s                   quiet violence;
                         the house exists to hold them.

Bruised bodies beaded         dark wet,
               glisten pressed to                  porcelain in this
                           astonished kitchen                  whiteness, this
                                                       bewildered daybreak rose.

We know just by                    looking how
               the mouth will form             around them,
                            the subtle shape                                    of promise
                                            and of fleeting tongue-burst flesh.