Van Gogh weeps and washes
                his brushes with the tip
of his tongue and his tears.

He walks into the assaulted
                          fields. Cicadas clench him
      like fever. Too close

to fire, he begins to make
fire from the swill

of olive trees shaken like silver
spoons inside a drawer
of his mind. Again he shifts

 from foot to foot, finding
a place for hunger, the ravished

backs of stars, devouring clouds,
      nailbeds of sullen yellow

sky, the jagged iron
     hooves of mountains,

rearing. He vaults over the pain he has made
           of himself a little less now.

And the crow breaks free.