Still Life

morning that seems just right for getting even with stray dogs
I do not hear a human utterance.

I return to the composition on the table. I sense that everything bothers me:
the scent of the turpentine, the crackling of the joints in the frame,
the unsteady easel, the little tube open with blue,
and the water now rationed, and that soon
the collector will ring, and that a woman on the radio
is discussing angrily the responsibility of war,
and that above the beer bottle is not Santa Croce’s bell tower
and I cannot drop in quickly over the coffee shop across the way
and watch, watch for a long time
how Florentine pigeons peck at bird-feed
thrown by human hands on the slabs smoothed over of the piazza.

The composition on the table awakens. The apples in the bowl stretch out.
The quince apple says: Outside is cold, but I have to go somewhere.
Since I am bride’s fruit and aspire to a new life.
The pears have already drawn blood nibbling at their own stems,
and this is in the spirit of the love of the Nazarene for humanity.
From the beer