Chagall's Kite, by Robin Rosen Chang

The Kite, by Marc Chagall (France, b. Belarus) 1925-26

Chagall’s Kite   

The man in the yellow hat
flies a kite from the top of a barn
and is so askew, leaning back
on one arm, I’m sure he’ll fall,
land in the corral 
where a few ghostly chickens stand.
The fowl will be aflutter,
wings flapping, feathers floating
in the air. Nearby, perched
on a red roof, another fellow.
Arms outstretched, he looks
like he’ll catch the kite, ride it
a short flight to the yellow-hatted man.
So they can sit together and chat
about the weather, the dill
the neighbour sows, the giant
carp lying belly up to the sky. 
And he can ask him a thing or two
about the carp with the red mouth
and the white goat with heavy eyelids
that lies in the blue grass
and dreams. Yes, dreams,
and how to make the improbable true.

Robin Rosen Chang

First published in my poetry collection, The Curator’s Notes (Terrapin Books). ​

Robin Rosen Chang is a 2023 New Jersey Council on the Arts poetry fellow and the author of the full-length collection, The Curator’s Notes (Terrapin Books). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, New Ohio Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Plume, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. She teaches writing at Montclair State University.