So I set out to paint
you in recollection,
to sketch you in broad
strokes: your
hip and shoulder, brow
and breast—a
bit less like Titian, a
little more
Matisse (for me, I’d be
a Hollander).
And you shot me with
that withered
gun, so that I can
believe you might have
seen the apocalypse in
a man’s heart.
A stove-plate etched
by Quaker hands
while Cain strikes his
brother dead. A
little less like you.
More willing to kill you.
And Hirst is another
blue-eyed orphan
who foundered in
interpretation that
broke beneath him as he
went, not
one but two and
lightning (three, four,
split sycamore).
Institutions will be
sanctified to God, and
God will
be a complete sentence
among the dead.
