Still life

The whiteness of a white plate
on a white cloth,
subtle ironstone and matte linen even more subtle;
the grass green shading to red of the beetle’s back
and the black leg feathery, tentative, alive,
stopped on the simple table

where petals of half-blown roses have come to rest,
shallow cups, delicately creased,
and the succulent endocarp of cut fruit
is mirrored in the gleaming knife.

The rabbit’s neck hangs over the table’s edge.
You’d say the nose was velvet, but for
that velvet cloth, its convex nappe
tipped with little lights like pollen dust,
its folds and dark drapery elsewhere
the deepest, tenderest black.

Table, neck, edge, shadow, fabric, each
fully felt, of itself most perfect,
quiver and breathe, impaled by light
in the moment of perfection,
about to fall; forever unfallen.