Girl Viewing Van Gogh, by Susan Morse

Four Withered Sunflowers, by Vincent Van Gogh (Netherlands) 1887

Girl Viewing Van Gogh  

Picture a pubescent girl
staring at Van Gogh's painting
sunflowers
she ponders her choices
was asked to write something
anything
in response to a picture
she chose "sunflowers"
she writes about the golden colours
then has nothing more to say
she doesn't even notice the artist's name
she would drive him wild
with her full bosom
her careless disregard of his masterpiece
with her heavily mascaraed eyes
which do not notice anything outside
her own private, teenaged perimeter
she doesn't know who painted this enigma
or anything about the torment of his world
but she does have one good line for him
"crinkled edges, looking limp, but somehow, still alive"
and I fire right up when I see that line
so full of possibilities
so cogent that it 
leaves me wondering if 
after all
I have missed something here
what does she really know of 
starry, starry nights
but right now she dreams only
of her fake Adonis, the one she plans to meet
at the water fountain when next she excuses
herself for the bathroom
Ah youth, that one line really tired her out 
I suppose, she's already moved on
leaving poor Vincent behind
though I suggest it would make a great poem.

Susan Morse

Susan Morse has lived in California, in rural Maine, and she moved to the Willamette Valley of Oregon in 2016.  She has a Masters degree in Literacy Education from the University of Maine, Orono, and completed a summer internship for the Maine Writers’ Project. She taught English/ Language Arts at the middle school level before retiring. She is a member of the Oregon Poetry Association. In the Hush, her first chapbook was published in June 2019 by Finishing Line Press. Individual poems have appeared in various journals including Cream City Review, The Mom Egg, The Aurorean, Amethyst Review, and The Willawaw Journal.