Green Linden Press

I Always Wake Up Happy

because, you know, I could’ve died while I lay me down. 
Plus, I’m not Van Gogh, that bipolar genius 
who cut off his ear when Gaugin left Arles. 
Dang, he didn’t know 

how brilliant he was: no one did. Even after he painted 
Starry, Starry Night, which I just looked up, 
and it’s worth $100 million dollars, 
but really we all know 

it’s priceless. Imagine what he could’ve done with that money then—
paid back his brother Theo, repainted The Yellow House, 
given each of his favorite whores a million-dollar tip. 
But I’m not him: a loose end, a lose end—

even at my worst I’m a resting cedar in the hour of deer and raindrop. 
Even at my worst, the streetlamp stays lit all night, 
the steam rises from the kettle, and my daughter 
pours herself a cup of English Breakfast. 

Nothing’s unrelenting. It’s pretty much all a dark chocolate bar 
with salted almonds. The landscape is lily pads 
with unbothered bees. If there’s flight, 
the plane lands with barely a bump. 

But Van Gogh. He attained but didn’t know it. 
How sad is that. He was a wood-dove 
without a wood, a pond without 
a reflection. Boughs 

without a tree. I could go on. It’s misty and forlorn over there
in the Midi. The rainy cold is different there, 
as is the tea, which is kind of the color 
of lunacy, what they used to call it, 

a tea that drowns gnats. I always wake up happy, 
imagining Van Gogh at St. Paul de Mausole 
Asylum, madly painting olive groves 
and poplars.