I’m rubber, you’re glue 

God fills the cracks between leaves, 

the helix of the wind, splits the worm 

but the worm lives on. 

God cracks the leaf like an old hand, 

helixes a whirlwind and worms 

into wood, wormwood with hallucinations 

of a dirigible sorrow.  

God is a dirigible, a hero of DNA, 

an old hand who reaches a sunflower 

and stipples it like Van Gogh 

after drinking wormwood. 

God is an ear, served by a painter 

whose DNA was cracked by old hands, 

stippled brain tissue wormed to the core. 

God is the fly that lands on Van Gogh’s 

ear and gains sustenance from the carbon, 

the boy beside his parents who stares 

at sunflowers and sneezes, the snot that exists 

to keep the nasal passages from infection. 

God is the infection, the breakdown 

of brain cells that results in dementia 

or melancholy or a knife to the ear, 

torrents of ache that overwhelm 

the boy years later as he writes this 

and years after he writes this. 

God is the pen that writes the ink 

of the boy keeping himself afloat, 

the lifeboat……across….these….. 

……………..waters……………… 

………………………………… 

Can you hear me Van Gogh? 

Can you ear me Van Gogh?