Self Portrait

Only until the thin hand

Strikes again.

I’ll be different then.

Van Gogh by the bookshelves.

Before the revolver and the empty field

Where not even twelve sunflowers could save him.

Clouds of breath

One, two, three,

Alone.

Anxiety as a date

That didn’t linger on the doorstep

Or politely follow curfew.

The first sunbeam each morning.

The day they tore out the flowers

And hauled them off covered with a blue tarp

For decency.

Guernica and cubism,

Stitching meaning together

From shattered pieces.

Half an eye, three quarters of a mahogany cloak,

And something that could be love.

Peace in a gold brocade journal at midnight.

Ten inept fingers tripping

Over 88 beautiful flawed melodies

In a cold back room.

One more tick,

A single forward tug of time

And now I’m someone else.