Empty Chairs
By Liu Xia
Empty empty empty
so many empty chairs
everywhere. They look
charming in van Gogh’s paintings.
I quietly sit on them
and try to rock
but they don’t move —
they are frozen
by what’s breathing inside them.
Van Gogh waves his paintbrush —
leave leave leave
there’s no funeral tonight.
He looks straight through me,
and I sit down
in the flames of his sunflower
like a piece of clay to be fired.
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