Still Life Poem by Frank Avon

It hung over our dining room table.
I wonder, does it hang there still?

A basket of fruit, as I remember,
appetizing no longer, moribund.

Still. Run your fingers over its
flatness, its texture glass.

Whose life? Living still? Edible?
Still living? Was once? Incredible.

Make the fruit feathers;
make the basket a bowl.

Leave off inquiry. Let it go.
Stave off iniquity. Always so.

Or a boa. Or a python. Its eyes.
Still. Alive. Its text-

ure: elegant, relevant, sibilant,
softly sinning among the cypresses,

shining, after all these years.
I wonder, does it swing there still?

'If you want great' sensibility, 'it's
hard work and a long walk' back there.