“Now there's a painting of night without black…”

—Vincent van Gogh, in an 1888 letter to his sister

…

Maybe it was the unreal sweetness of it, of the food, of the night,

the way it melted on his tongue like a blueberry pill, he wet his lips against the warm thirsty breeze

and the faint music that seemed to emanate from the very air in all directions,

sultry and ominous,

but he somehow saw the stars as closer then,

like candles in lanterns, painting hulking taverns and bone-frail cafés the same too-natural yellow

that had settled onto the crags of his face, relegating him to

shadow, to background, he picked up

a pebble and tossed it into the Seine, watching with some satisfaction as it wrecked

the wide-eyed mirror of the perfect dark water

staring up at the perfect stars, gathered at the hem by some ma mémé

probably sitting in a café now, laughing over a saffron-hued memory,

unaware of the man in the stolen overcoat with half a foot

in the light, and the other half in un-darkness, and the other foot out the door

because he couldn’t stand the color green, and preferred

dirt to roses,

he idly thought, blowing out rings of bitter smoke up towards the sky,

some number of cobblestones away

lovers steal off into alleyways,

kids up past their bedtimes scamper towards candy shops,

old men laugh deep in their chest,

he thinks as he sits by the river,

letting the blackness drain out of his trachea,

disappearing before it taints the blackless night.