LAST SUPPER by Graham Burchell
Botticelli grinned with egg tempera congealed at the hinge of his lips
Velasquez licked shine from an aubergine blackened in the shadows
Vermeer picked pearls from a jar labelled ‘silverskin onions’
Turner stirred through the steam mist risen above Venetian chicken soup
Monet decorated a blue plate with sliced cucumber and radishes
Gauguin sniffed a sponge cake’s desiccated coconut and sighed
Van Gogh spat a gristle morsel at a swirl of Provençal sauce
Cézanne reached for the fruit bowl but dithered between apple and pear
Dali tweaked moustache and swallowed a sheep’s eye with relish
Bacon tore at turkey leg his neck twisted in hidden fury
Pollock drizzled ranch dressing about tossed Waldorf salad
while Freud spooned one more pickled walnut to an off-white napkin next
to the last painter unknown a child still that sobbed over eggy soldiers
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