Tuesday Poem: previously published in 1997 by Poetry London Newsletter, and The Nerve: A Writing Women's Poetry Anthology

Vincent Loves Lucy

It would've gone this way:

him taking her to his little room at Arles,

after ditching Ricky in Paris,

the Cuban left scratching his head at the station,

trying to figure out which train his dizzy 

wife had boarded by mistake.

It would start out like a dream,

guileless as the gleaners in the fields:

Her speaking her cartoon French to make him laugh.

Him whispering that her rosebud mouth

was the keyhole to unlocking them both.

But it wouldn't take long for him 

to start throwing the knives,

for the two of them to reach 

combustion you might say,

what with all that flaming 

improbable hair.

Picture the two of them:

so fair, sailing over wheat 

colored grass, the lift of her 

parasol, him coaxing her up

like a kite in the wind,

onto the Langlois bridge's 

delicate scaffolding.

Then all of a sudden 

her skirt gets caught,

the stubborn tilt of her hat 

as she yanks and yanks,

the boats crowding in 

unable to go through

and Vincent making 

no move to help,

only trying to paint 

her refusal, only blotting out 

her reflection with thick blue strokes.

Of course she'd spill 

unwanted into every painting:

the orange doorways, the frantic 

slashes of sunlight, the crows

singing badly in the fields.

Alas, these brushes 

with immortality 

don't last, no matter

how well imagined.

The whole thing, 

for Lucy, too much

like being locked inside

a steamer trunk, for Vincent, 

a mouth overfull of chocolates.

Before you know it, there's a telegram 

waiting for Ricky at the Hotel desk.

Help stop, it says. 

I tried to buy a painting stop

But the guy misunderstood me stop

Can you and Fred and Ethel pick me up?