Every once in a while, you read something that sticks with you.
Something that, as soon as you read the last word, you know you will remember it forever.
Something that you know will haunt you every time your mind wanders.
Something that you know will take your breath away every time you think of it.
I found that something in Issue IV.
Here is my something.
the portrait of giovanni arnolfini & his wife
Written by Jesse Kane
i got drunk again last night & called my ex-girlfriend
to ask her what that painting she based her undergraduate
thesis on was called, the one with the man & woman
who look like aliens & the woman looks pregnant
but isn’t, & the little brown dog, & the christian iconography.
the painter must have been up his own ass, right?
i mean he painted himself right into the painting,
& why only one candle?
jesse, why are you calling?
i have new poems to send you & i need your address.
she asked me why i didn’t write poems
about her when we’d spend our mornings
at the kitchen table over coffee & sourdough.
i told her there is little to hold onto in a poem
about fighting over who’s going to set
the thermostat or take the dog out to shit.
i’d rather write poems about your affinity
for eyckian realism, or how the portrait of
giovanni arnolfini & his wife always stuck
with her after we decided we wouldn’t keep the baby.