Tiny van Gogh by Kevin Ridgeway

A medium sized
Vincent van Gogh
action figure
that I bought
at the Getty Gift Shop
on a rehab field trip
graces my dusty bookshelf

He has interchangeable
heads, one with two ears
vibrant and
crisply tanned
like he went
on a refreshing safari or
an Italian vacation

the other is a gray
sagged skull
wrapped in
bandages with
a limp institutional
grimace

When I am in
the range of stability
to on top of the world,
he has two ears

when life goes into
the gutter of disheveled
oblivion he has
only one

I’m making a third head
with no ears, in addition to
handcrafted sheath shreds
of worn woman’s negligees,
wool hospital booties
and a tiny pack of
generic rot-lung cigarettes
for the truly demoralizing,
engulfed in the
flames of hell
times.

Author bio:

Kevin Ridgeway is a writer from Southern California. His most recent work has appeared in Ray's Road Review, The Left Coast Review, In Somnis Veritas, and in addition he has forthcoming publications in Breadcrumb Scabs, Red Fez, Calliope Nerve, The Orange Room Review and Larks Magazine.