Questions

  

Prisoners' Round 

by Vincent van Gogh

(1890)

Always the discomfort with questions

A booming sound, distant, distorted.

Me, a shifty dark room

Closing in on itself.

 

Like on a captor’s command

I step out in the blinding sun

Look up first and then down to my toes

Show up, speak up, account for my woes.

 

A mad scramble

For words and threads

A patchwork robe

To dodge the probe.

 

Handy wear, held fast and close

Eyes on the ground

Grows heavier still

More robe than me, less me each round.

 

I wonder tonight

When this term began

The penal call

The eyes downcast.

 

I wonder tonight

If I could shrug off the robe

Stretch an arm and pull it down.

 

When right beside me

in the open ground

I could ask perhaps if it would befriend me.