On the anniversary of Van Gogh’s death
You, who wielded yellow not like a weapon
but like a looking glass. Did you find it?
The ochre on the inside of starry eyes,
in the yawning mouths of terminal flowers,
the hay in the buttery shade of cypress trees?
You, who forged blue into an ocean of tiny suns,
burning Paris back to itself on the wings of crows
scouring away their heartfelt blacknesses and cawing
in that moment, forever. The people in your paintings
always have such heavy shoulders.
It must have been unbearable.
