How to Vanish, by Glenn Schudel

Undergrowth with Two Figures, by Vincent Van Gogh (Netherlands) 1890

​How to Vanish

He thinks he’s hidden, 
the man in the black coat. 
Stiff and still, he stands like a shadow, 
lurks like the Babadook, 
slippery as an oil slick, 
a long, lean knife of night. 
Behind a spray of flowers, he waits, 
speckled by the undergrowth, 
confident he can’t be seen.
 
But the woman beside him? 
The woman in green? 
Squint. 
Lean into your screen. 
Slide your fingers. Zoom
until you find her. 
Now she knows how to 

vanish.
 
Quiet, 
discreet, 
she nearly bleeds into the trees. 
 
I wonder if she has a thousand dresses 
in a thousand tones and tints 
to hide inside a thousand different scenes, 
or if, like an opal, 
this one garment shifts 
to match whichever place 
she finds herself.

Glenn Schudel
​
Glenn Schudel lives in Florida with a neurotic dog, a malevolent cat, and several overgrown bonsai trees. He holds an MFA in Shakespeare and Performance from Mary Baldwin University and teaches Creative Writing at Ringling College of Art and Design. "How to Vanish" is his first poetry publication.