Small Container, Fury

Rembrandt paints his carcass of beef.

You see a little blood near the poppies

and don’t think of detachment.

Humbert and his girl are driving across America.

One has a thirst so unslakeable, one walks

right into the river.

How exciting spring is! and how errant,

holding out love and death

like a platter of the daintiest cakes.

As I do my work, I think, let me topple,

wear thin. Let the world eat me, but

then, let the world sob, not me.

“Small Container, Fury” is from The Wilderness (W.W. Norton, 2014).