Granattrichter mit Blumen (1924)
after an etching by Otto Dix
Because he couldn’t forget it eight years later
we stand ten yards from that crater,
prevented from gazing into the heart:
he blacked that in, held us back from it.
And he recalled the background bare, but etched a chain
of full-grown wildflowers patting hands at the rim.
We know they’ve filled it all in, that ninety ploughs
have dragged their fingers against his remembered grit.