Ibsen and the Scorpion

While I was writing Brand I had standing on my desk an empty beer glass with a scorpion in it.
 From time to time the creature became sickly; then I used to throw a piece of soft fruit to it, which it
 would then furiously attack and empty its poison into; then it grew well again.


Something furious in it,
                            what could be
      a pair of swollen figs butted
end to end, and angry

---when the warm and sectioned
       body grows sickly caught
              in a beerglass
              a specimen jar
on the desk where Henrik Ibsen
is writing Brand
       something furious happens
       to the apple
                         that he throws:

(hold there: watch, and wait: suspended, maybe the moment
can be put off: no, watch, the scorpion)

as he cleaves
                       to the apple
the poison
                 is emptied
in jerks,
              injected

to the sleepy flesh.

                                He finishes,
twitching,
                backs off
and rests;

the specimen deposited,
                            necrotic,
            he recovers.

*

Repeat the pattern. The scorpion
     won't tire, keeping
restive and wary, till a new fruit
     brings a new
awareness of health, till
     all of his bad
poisoned self, his lonely
     impulse of disgust
is vented, eased.

(And Ibsen:
  Is there not
something similar to that
         about us poets?)

© Matthew Sperling