Some Beauty

Its nature

is ruthless, nothing

as simple as

loss being ruinous,

those undeniable rainbows

of oil, shock of bright

sulphurous puddles

(in goldfinch, in lemon)

and now what,

if that beauty's

terrible plumage

makes you keep looking

and disturbs your despair.

Copyright Credit: Lia Purpura, "Some Beauty" from It Shouldn’t Have Been Beautiful. Copyright © 2015 by Lia Purpura. Used by permission of Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Source: It Shouldn’t Have Been Beautiful (Penguin Books, 2015)