​A High Blue Note after Vincent Van Gogh’s Room at Arles
by Kelly N. Cockerham

…instead of painting the ordinary wall of the mean room, I paint infinity,
a plain background of the richest, most intense blue I can contrive…
--Vincent Van Gogh, in a letter to his brother,
Theodore, sent from Arles, 1888

I thought blue would empty
its heart into my mouth,
fill me with berries.

At the time, I thought,
yes, blue will help.

Now I’m cold, my stomach
moves without me until I am sick.

Maybe yellow would have been better
but I put the sun on hinges and locked it up.

It saw too much and spoke too loudly.
I wish I could remember

what hay smells like.

I am tired of looking at myself.
I make an island of red and still
the ants swim out to bite me.
Some of them grow wings under my boots
and fly away. Surely, I killed
them all yesterday. There is a basket
by the door, waiting, if only I could open it.

The natives are brown beauties,
leaves, bark, sharp teeth made of acorns.
I saw them watching me through the field.
The sky was blue, big; I ran
into it and locked the door.

Now I live on a well-groomed cloud.
When it is dark, I take my broom
from its box, sweep great storms of dust
into the blackness and set it all on fire.