(after a painting by Georg Bazelitz)

When the red chair suspended in air 

grazes the top of your head

and the white pitcher that rests on the chair



neither falls nor spills, you will move

to the window, or the empty space 

in the wall left by the guns on the hill



just outside the city, and be amazed 

at the mill ablaze in the distance, 

the loud report of dry beams knuckled



under heat, the carousel of shadows spun 

around the orange center of the flames, 

because you know this cannot happen here



or because you know the mill's been on fire 

for so long that the city's been consumed 

entirely and the heat from the mill



has blistered the red paint on the chair 

and dried the water from the pitcher, 

and, if you wait one more instant,



afraid that it is too late, it will be too late, 

and the chair and pitcher will drift 

through your hair as ash.