Still Life

Paint is so engrossed with its own fruit
that it grows oblivious to putrefaction.
Wizening subjects, shrinking into rot.
Tainted, antique palette.  Obsessive chance
governs even living things, the stink
of spoiling treats still jerks a reflex action.
Waiting too long, game-playing for ripe meats,
Waxed berries, gone-over crustaceans, stone fruits -
toxic marrow in a sharpened nut.
Art works and re-works models to destruction.
Overpaints nature with a demented brush.
Shrouds bounty of orchards, oceans, industry
in a bolt of anxious grave-cloth, nagging
life to conform to its tyranny.