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Nature morte : l'atelier de l'artiste, 1891

If the knife should lay upon a white tablecloth,
Half turned towards a vase of painted china
In which posed flowers collide, and of which the
Curves show startled faces of daisies, all dulled
In a tangential evening light from the window ;

If the roofs and chimneys should bask in their
Obsolescence as in the last heat of the day,
Raising their perpendiculars to the raw heaven,
Unchanged by the fleet paths of birds that pass
Between the shaded window and their dull clay ;

If the fruit should sit in a glow from the rooftops,
Seeming to swim in uncertain forms, lovely and
Dark as a child's wet hair, in a china fruitbowl
That funnels whitely from the table like a splash
Of spilt cream, pale-skinned, yellow and green ;

Who then shall say this nature is captured where
It lies, or that it is the artifact of crude cohesion?
We parse it out among its very fragrances! Our
Love is no drawn and vivisected thing. Deposons.
We will watch the fruit in their deathless light.