“Still life with mackerel, lemon and tomato,’’ by Vincent Van Gogh (1886)
“They lie in parallel rows,
on ice, head to tail,
each a foot of luminosity
barred with black bands,
which divide the scales’
radiant sections
like seams of lead
in a Tiffany window.’’
— From ‘Display of Mackerel,’’ by Mark Doty, formerly of Provincetown
