I remember when the boatman found you
Floating
In the Schelde,
And plucked you out as if you were
A Clump
Of damp black hair,
Knotted around a shallow drain.
With the speed of a Lefaucheux I raced back to that shore,
Swirling wheat snagged in my beard,
Thirty-hour old
Spine and
Lung and
Marrow
Still nestled in the sinews of my shirt.
I skidded my knees into the ground,
Bruising the sand beside your blue cheek and burst
Red
Eyes, that burnt away any
Image of Ophelia.
Taking a second glance, he lowered his inky face,
Put coal into the furnace
And set his seventh course around that stick-thin river,
Leaving a trail of sullen foam in its wake
That grasped like spectres
To the vessel’s side.
Alone my heart gave way –
Clouds
Wounds
Banks all opened;
The painter became the canvas,
And your decayed jaw,
and swollen stomach,
And blackish nails
Smothered the white –
I cried.
I then heard someone mutter and turned to see
A man,
A few years younger than myself,
Yet identical in many ways,
Ask in a familiar voice:
“How can there be on earth
A woman
Alone,
Abandoned?”
He told me he had travelled from Auvers-sur-Ouse,
Where he tended to his late brother’s
declining health.
“The sadness” he said,
With a wheezy voice,
Whilst noting the turbulent sky,
“Will
Last forever.”
At this he forced a dead smile,
Turned away
And left no trace in the sand.
Curled upright
With my face buried in
My folded arms,
I asked if you remembered that
day.
The day your gnarled black hair tangled over your left shoulder,
Your white skin and breasts –
Now sagging with milk –
Felt the wind kick up from the stream,
As your toes
And the soles of your feet
Nestled in the soil.
“That day
You told me,
Before the returning flow of gin and men,
That I was the best figure you had drawn in
Ink and pen.
But I was not lorded over,
Or gazed at in bright rooms as you will be; thumbed by gloved academics
In Paris
London
Amsterdam.
Our apartment was taken when you left,
My only visitors dragged grubby fingers over grubby
Walls,
Tables and beds.”
All this I heard
Bubbling in the current,
As your eyes birthed tears
That sailed over the waves of your face,
A journey my fingers once knew.
But remember the crocuses –
I protest –
The blue bells,
Daffodils,
Snowdrops
Primroses
Tulips.
Remember the bees bumping past them.
Remember them as Persephone’s children;
Recurring demigods amongst the grass.
Remember these as I intended:
Sketched out in front of you,
Protecting you as you wept.
But remember, most of all,
Remember how, when you walked past,
Barefoot, naked
And alive,
They did not shrivel away,
But instead, brimming with unconditional love,
Blossomed and softly laid kisses on your ankles,
Kisses that promised
Always promised
Still always promising
A beginning.
Sorrow (1882) – Vincent Van Gogh