This is the Last Picture that Van Gogh Painted Before He Killed Himself
Wheatfield with Crows, 1890.
Glass, iron and asphalt.
Paris opened her legs,
shaved her wheat stocks,
and from her womb came crows
blackening,
and more crows, and still more crows
Sometimes, and with a Kind of Fury
Night conceals itself,
the sleeping cat
curling inward
all its precious things.
Power lines
work like caution tape,
guard the dark sky.
Van Gogh was relentless.
He called life a one-way journey
on a train,
engine out of sight,
objects indistinguishable.
How we manage to render,
only
sometimes
and with a kind of fury.
Neighboring children
like slow tears
trickle out
their back doors
to watch
four young girls
swim in a plastic pool
four feet deep,
their black hair shining
like the back of a killer whale,
their almond skin glittering
like the flick, flickering
of a thousand flashlights in the night
as they glide along.
The father is flipping burgers,
the son is tuning the radio,
his ear close to the speaker.
There are two dogs biting each other’s necks.
Clotheslines crisscross
over the length
of the grey,
concrete backyard.
tired, white work-shirts
bob and sway
in the breeze, like
>buoys in the sea.
The girls are shrieking,
their voices seething
because the sun
has snuck away.
Four bodies of water
inside one body of water
that holds them like
fish in a cup, except
these girls cuss,
“it’s not fucking warm!”
one girl shouts,
as she leaps out
her short pigtails dripping
and swinging.
BIO: Elizabeth Dosta currently lives in New York City, and attends Eugene Lang - New School University where she is a Writing Concentrator with an emphasis on poetry. Some of her inspirations include Patti Smith and Emily Dickinson. She is also an alumna of Long Beach City College.
