A Few Words about Van Gogh
By Anzhelina Polonskaya
Right now perhaps you're holding a horse by the bridle.
Perhaps you're with someone, the lights still on.
Is there any more freedom than in the word dearth?
I don't even know whether this is a poem or a diary.
In my whole life I only loved one woman
with nonfilial love. Inside my mouth there's an
indescribable movement, most likely unattractive,
like an spasm. When the pencil falls from your hands.
It's not that I'll never see
sixteen again, nor even thirty.
But something's been breached. The book of coldness written
smoothly, like the defendent's bench.
When Van Gogh was dying, his last
words were said to be "sorrow will last forever."
That could be anyone's epitaph.
The eternal has its own laws.
Copyright Credit: Anzhelina Polonskaya, "A Few Words about Van Gogh" from To The Ashes. Copyright © 2019 by Anzhelina Polonskaya, translated by Andrew Wachtel. Reprinted by permission of Zephyr Press.
Source: To The Ashes (Zephyr Press, 2019)