Egon Schiele: “A Trieste Fishing Boat” (1907)
There is no one fishing
in Trieste today.
They’ve been ordered to stay home.
The boat abandoned.
The world abandoned too
beyond the painter’s old frame.
The water is a murky pink,
a toxic dump,
reflecting off
a sky full of ash
or dust.
The boat sinks.
The colors leak
black as oil,
down into a
slick shadow,
down
into the dates of
my 2020 wall calendar.
*
Clint Margrave is the author of the novel Lying Bastard (Run Amok Books, 2020), and the poetry collections, Salute the Wreckage, The Early Death of Men, and Visitor (Forthcoming) all from NYQ Books. His work has appeared in The Threepenny Review, Rattle, and The Moth, among others.
