Jack Delano, Retiring a locomotive driver wheel in the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railway locomotive shops, Shopton, near Fort Madison, Iowa, 1943
Color transparency
Digital image courtesy of the Library of Congress
flame in slow motion curls
& ripples like yellow silk
braids & unbraids like water
splashing down jagged rocks
even now I can hardly
tell things one from another
to put on my flame
yellow dress doesn’t
burn even a little
from the eye mild fire
reaches out to caress
the untrustworthy world
bring back reports
to the little king enthroned
in the court of my skull—
explaining veils, barfights
the pressure of gaze
flame, ink, apples
a crow bleeding
into fresh snow
the little king looks
out on the snow
wants a child
like this like that