The deep rainbow of oil slickedin the supermarket parking lotcalls to me with its dark beautyto step in and paint dirtymy already worn-white shoes.At camp the bonfire’s reachingtongues ascended to try to lickthe tree. I would throw whatevertrash I had in to see whatcolors the garbage would burn:turn from waste to green orpurple glow. Fall: the horsepulled a hayride and I tracedthe patterned indentationsthe straw left on my thighs.I can no longer see oiland not think of the oceanbloated with it, a duck or ottermucked with viscous liquidnow just black and not glinting.I can’t see a horse withoutthinking of the bloodied daywhen the marchers were meton the bridge and trampled, batonand hoof making fragile workof brown-encased bone.How’s that for nonviolence?Even the ocean catches firewith enough oil or gas. Even a gascan eat through an atmosphereor a lung. I can’t stop clearingmy dry throat and my groanssync into metronome, turn musicto pain and itch. Nathanael West,a lesser-known modernist, writes:“The physical world has a tropismfor disorder, entropy.” I can’t stopbuilding monuments to the chaos.I can’t stop adoring the blood’scool crimson, how it insistson spilling out sometimes evenfrom a small nick. I tellmy psychiatrist I have gottenvery good at finding the beautyin this awful and awe-filled world,but it gets hard to feel it. The headcan hold knowledge the bodyrejects. Nathanael again: “All orderis doomed, yet the battleis worthwhile.” I’m still reachinglike that polluted fire. I’m hopingif I reach the branch I use it notto burn down but climb up.