The eye's iris might be bottle glass
perhaps, but not brown, looking
out innocuously from a ham's
center, which is smoked pink naturally
marbled with the not-quite-white

of fat and china. The plate
collars the ham. Fork and knife,
stainless twins, share
black handles. The bottle,
just opened, is brown, a Riesling

that suggests the slab is ham
and not a pancake. The glass waits,
expecting milk. The table clothed
navy, gathers all, navel of dinner
and more.

© 2003, Amy Hart

ICYDK: Portrait is a painting by French first-wave surrealist René Magritte. Google it, if you haven't seen it because it's odd and amusing, as many surrealist paintings are. While you're at it, google Magritte himself and read about his challenging of visual perception and the concept of visual grammar in relation to his work. I've only seen Portrait in black and white, so I decided to "paint" the color in myself.