42

after Luca Fontana

I’ve remarked elsewhere on that razor-slash -
bold, vicious, into no more than canvas
but modelling for sure a greater anger
against all that presents, against all surfaces, all faces,
What is behind it? Black black black.

So it is a surprise to meet again
these punctures into the void
and see them now delicately cut,
even affectionately it seems,
small upturned isosceles, and so connected
they seem like lines of bunting,
no red white and blue, nor red white and green,
only grey, chalky white, the smears
of an accidental world and – how can it be? –
the little black flags,
nothing in themselves, but with a slight curl inwards,
are not so much baleful as jaunty.

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