Post Impressionist Art.

Dear Vincent
I once wrote a poem about how
you pressed into the hand of a woman you-
"loved" seems a stretch
even by the standards
of my prodigious imagination;
"knew" seems presumptuous.
Anyhow: you pressed into her hand
a valentine,
blood and flesh.
She screamed, I imagine.
Few of us can be prepared
for such trust.

This is not that poem.
Instead, a question-
what would you make, I wonder
of the view from my terrace:
no wheat field or orchard,
no tumultuous viridian sea.
Concrete and smoke-
the wind bears with it
not the whiff of almonds
or the tolling of the church bells,
only the insistent keening
of ground being
broken.

Dusty shoes, yes, set aside
by dusty hands,
and from this distance, perhaps,
I recognize your strokes
in the line of the man's back
bent.

Scene:
Rain, filth, the squelch of
bare feet, she runs ahead
school bag strapped, braids flying
while I mince my way down
the street, careful-
I have no wish to get
dirty.

Now, an afternoon, stolen-
cerulean sky, gnarled branches
blur; the sun flowers
beneath my eyelids;
perhaps they're not so different,
your times and mine-
Inhale, exhale-
Life, or the impression of it.