Taking a walk on the fourth of February
 
in a black shirt and cardigan,
 
I no longer wish to die,
 
 
 
to watch cardinals painted blue
 
fly above Lake Michigan. It’s versatile,
 
but everything is that’s beige:
 
 
 
the dream I believe my brother’s
 
having, the walk I’m taking, both
 
interspersing the names and places
 
 
 
we recognize as afterlives as we might
 
recognize the people-less places
 
of Van Gogh’s paintings following
 
 
 
the loss of his ear. Only for the girl
 
with Starry Night over her head to stop
 
the rain would I disrobe. She’s why
 
 
 
I put the last purchase in a safe,
 
why I never want to relive the decade
 
drawing my likeness in charcoal, folding
 
 
 
the sketch, pinning it to my lapel, and
 
setting itself on fire. For a year following
 
this each boredom killing kiss pulled skin
 
 
 
from the lips which went down
 
the throat like orange pulp.
 
How restored by a cardigan a man feels,
 
 
 
forgetting how Van Gogh found communion
 
with the mentally ill at his life’s end, forgetting
 
how sometimes he wanted to die.