Vanitas

Layne Eckensberger 

Two peaches and a butterfly on a stone plinth.
Strawberries and red currents on a marble ledge.
Vanitas still life with skull and hourglass.  In this light
                                                                nothing ever had a name. 
You will only listen to the snow in the walls now.
Still life with hanging bunch of grapes, a butterfly.  
Still life in a niche.  Still life with fruit
                                                                and a grapevine.  Where
do your eyes go when you listen to the snow and why. 
Your signature in someone else’s hand and you like it.
The letter A on a stone plinth.
Still life with hazelnuts.  Still life with asparagus and red
currents.  Still life with shells.  
                                                                Seashells.  If
he isn’t dead yet I don’t want to talk to you yet.  Currents.
Orange.  Do us part.  Silver serif on the floor in the shadow
of a cut amber glass collecting rain under the sill.
In one ritual, in wild precision, the nails slash the back.
I love you.  Spray of green gooseberries on a stone plinth.
Spray of red gooseberries on a stone plinth.
Bunch of grapes.

 

Layne Eckensberger received a Bachelor of Arts from Bennington College in 2017 and lives in Massachusetts.