Albrecht Durer —The Wing of a Blue Roller

A rainbow is rent from the body:
a pinned wing for gaping and pointing
painted in the planet’s palette and fuzzed
with the recollection of flight. Now
staunched under glass, mites still
creep in and chew the world
apart, fast as oil slipping, not
mixing with the ocean’s
bodily waves,
rolling blue.

H2O, CnH2n
hydrogen oxygen
carbon hydrogen
A hydra with heads that
render cutting futile. A hydrant
hit cracks open and the deluge shoots
sideways, it’s wrenching

to watch. My watch, wild with the blood
of ticks, the spool unwinding in linear
time. The heat draws a line of sweat
across our necks, the guillotine of
human rule. A murderous
monarchy an empire’s
end, sinking on
seeds of
milkweed.

A version of this poem was first published in The Ekphrastic Review, 2022.

Albrecht Durer, Wing of a Blue Roller,
ca. 1500, watercolor on vellum
(public domain)