It’s that easy. That’s the thing.
To always be here.
The pudgy young man in a dark djellaba inspecting the body as if he might a rolled-up rug at a bazaar, and, an afterthought, delivering it a few hard kicks.
Then you simply turn and stroll away.
I painted two yellow books and a burning candle on Gauguin’s otherwise empty armchair: his portrait.
The crowd slowly converging on what has been left behind.
Without hurry crossing the road, cattycorner-ing for the park.
For mine, I painted my own empty wicker chair, on its seat my pipe and tobacco pouch.
The din of the world revisiting you as you become just another pedestrian among the general infestation of them.
Gauguin/van Gogh: like that.
Just another commuter on his way to his daily lifelessness.
I wish I could pass away exactly like this, Monsieur Vincent commenting, apropos of nothing.
The thing being not to run.
Don’t, Theo saying.
Not to glance back.
Please.
The thing being to become imaginary as the sirens flood the streets around you.
Twenty-four wooden planks. That’s it. That’s—
And then—
A visual duet.
And then—
Look: Monsieur Vincent appears to be having some difficulty catching his—
— this is where your plan simply ends.
White light vaporing the room.
Walk into the park, they told you. Misplace yourself, they told you.
Snow dusting a plowed field.
But not what to do next.
My Vincentness having, it would seem—
And so you keep pushing forward, brain blind.
Three shrill red rectangles hanging in the air.
The world all at once becoming—
My Vincentness having usurped the environment of other people and objects.
The world all at once becoming greener, commotion everywhere, the grassy field and dark pond widening before you.
Pulling pipe from lips, I answer:
You move up a wide concrete path.
Yes. I believe so.
An elderly couple strolling arm-in-arm in front of you. A teen boy pushing a pram.
How the roses—
A terrier walking its owner.
Thinking in images.
They see me, if they see me at all, as negligible visual dissonance in their surroundings.
Or might it conceivably be past noon already?
Oblivious of history blazing around them.
Will the wonders nev—
You progress north, autumn soiling every inhalation.
Monsieur Vincent wanting to laugh, but his chest having other matters on its mind.
The pond swinging lazily to your left, the black spiked fence to your right.
This conversational business is killing me.
Your gaze tracking the ground a meter ahead of your sneakers.
Plains of corn backed by hills. Canary. Pale green. Mauve.
Your grayblackwhite footblur.
My ocean: this yellow. My flowerbed: these fields.
Around you, everyone fulfilling his role.
I am lying on my back on a dirt path, trying to—
Everyone being who he or she needs to be.
No. That’s not it.
You will return to your flat. That is what you will do.
Gray is soft as surrender.
No, that is not what you will do.
It is July. It is 1869. I am sitting in a gallery restless with Rembrandts.
You will do something else. You will—
The bulbous nose. The blasted brown eyes.
You will tram to the Central Station. You will train to France. To Switzerland. Germany.
Although it is the—
You will sink into a new life.
An orange, I say, surprising myself.
The one you never anticipated would extend beyond 8:45 a.m.
Rachel?
You will call the Sheik. He will explain things. He will tell you..what? He will tell you—
Dear Theo: I have nature and art and poetry. If that isn’t enough, what is? — Your unvincenting brother,_
He will tell you—
Chiaroscuro.
You will not call the Sheik.
The trouble with the past, Toulouse-Lautrec commenting, is that the bitch is full of facts.
You will—
Noses and knuckles knobby as the tubers they’re eating.
Italy. No, Greece. Spain.
To hell with perspective. Let the cascading rooms begin.
You will cross by ferry from Algeciras to Tangier.
Keep this object like a treasure, you told her, passing Rachel the package with the best of you inside.
You will rent a car and drive into the desert. Catch a bus and ride into the desert. Stand by the side of the road, hitchhiking.
It’s like opening a win—
You will find your uncle’s house.
In his hat rimmed with shivering candles, Monsieur Vincent looks like nothing so much as a flaming sunflower in the night.
The one your father built down by the river. Beige clay bricks. A yellow door.
Is he sleeping?
Dawn pinking sand dunes all the way out to the horizon.