Studying Vincent on The Last Day of May

I listen to the life of Vincent van Gogh at Arles.
Today’s sky thick as a painting’s blue undertones.
Vincent who painted like some men dig ditches.
Vincent who frightened the children—

the children who threw stones at him.
His severed ear a gift for a prostitute
who faints when she receives it.

Vincent who never smiled, his teeth
a rotting shambles, his mind clouded
from syphilis, his crucifixion complex,

his easel a cross, his love of far East prints.
The three geishas become three Marys.
Then the petition signed by the fearful
to run him out of town.

There’s a bit of Vincent in us:
we freaks and weirdos, we watchers
of the world’s inhabitants—
invisible razors at our fingertips.

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Ellen June Wright is an American poet with British and Caribbean roots. Her work has been published in Plume, Tar River, Missouri Review, Verse Daily, Gulf Stream, Solstice, Louisiana Literature, Leon Literary Review, North American Review, Prelude, and Gulf Coast, and is forthcoming in Cimarron Review. She’s a Cave Canem and Hurston/Wright alumna and a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee.