(For Lee Simonson)

A bowl of fruit upon a piece of silk: —
Stiff pears and awkward apples, with the leaves
A crude and evil-tempered sort of green.
Harsh reds and screaming yellows, brilliant blacks,
Savagely massed, with strong and angry skill,
Against a furious, orange-colored cloth.
A canvas rioting with love and hate;
Colors that grappled, snarled and lashed the soul. . .
Never have I beheld such fierce contempt,
Nor heard a voice so full of vehement life
As this that shouted from a bowl of fruit,
High-pitched, malignant, lusty and perverse —
Brutal with a triumphant restlessness
And joy that cannot heal but laughs and stabs. . .
I never knew the man that did this thing,
This bowl of fruit upon a piece of silk;
And yet I know him better than I know my friends.