Van Gogh
       

I say, "How was your summer?" and you say,
"We had our ups and downs," and I say,
"Well, I hope it was more ups than downs,"
and you pause for a moment, and then you say,
"Liam died," and before I can bite my tongue off,
you tell me about the bike, the stop sign,
the distracted driver, the call to you,
the call from you to your wife, your parents, hers,
the service, the stunned look on the faces
of Liam’s friends, the look the grownups
gave you, the sense you got that they, too,
were devastated yet felt lucky and guilty
about their luck. I let you talk,
though as I did, I imagined you getting the call
and looking around and realizing
you were seeing for the last time the world
as you had known it. And then
you called the others. Van Gogh said
he saw things as if in a dream, as themselves
yet at the same time stranger than reality.
On the last day of his life, he shouldered
his bag of brushes and paints
and canvases and made his way
to the wheatfield where the crows cooed
and cawed and rattled and clicked,
unable to believe their luck.

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Copyright © 2021 David Kirby All rights reserved
from 32 Poems
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission