Van Gogh Revisits His First Painting as a Ghost, by Jenna K Funkhouser

Bridge and Houses on the Corner of Herengracht-Prinsessegracht, The Hague, by Vincent van Gogh (Netherlands) 1882.

Van Gogh Revisits His First Painting as a Ghost

I’ve seen this street hundreds 
of times, sometimes 
even in my dreams. 

So what is it about one man, 
slouching down the canal, 
the light like dawn, 
The way the lines 
are stone and water
skeleton and key? 

Fog makes us intimate, 
Shapeless, he and I
Just a handful of neighborhood
Undistracted by a wide expanse 
     of sky.

When the curtains part halfway
Like a careless mouth
We flow like water
Into their open lives.

Jenna K Funkhouser​

Jenna K Funkhouser is a poet, freelance writer, and mosaic artist living in Portland, Oregon. Her poetry has recently been published by Geez Magazine, the Saint Katherine Review, and As It Ought To Be, among others. She is currently working on her second volume of poetry, an ekphrastic exploration of fully inhabited lives.