Was this what you heard, Edvard Munch,

in that moment

when vision shrieked like a mad sunflower,

when the air turned blood

& event horizons

shimmered in the sunset?

Paint maelstroms into Milky Ways,

a bridge redshifts toward oblivion—

misshapen O

of summary horror,

parenthetical hands quoting void.

At the marrow of nature is death,

& you needed

no dismembered star to guide you:

you shared this galaxy's

endless scream

from the black hole of your birth.