Van Gogh
Emily Cinquemani In one version of my story, the police find my apartment covered in blood, and I gift the crescent sliver of my ear to a woman down the street, tell her, this is important. Maybe they wonder what makes a man want to cut away a part of himself, but I prefer to dwell on sharp strokes across canvas, on the way lines can form a single shape, on how the ring marks from a lover's glass once drew faint circles along my kitchen table. Some nights, the wind rams its fingers through rib white chair spokes on the porch, and, alone, I paint only to ignore their ghost-rocking. I paint my ear bandaged, paint beyond my touch and her recoil. I try to remember what makes anyone want to press themselves into a stranger's hands. What shifted across the bright veins in my chest when I touched the speckled landscape of her arm? And what part of myself did she hold there, in the hollow of her palm? |
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About the Author:
Emily Cinquemani currently lives, works, and writes in Atlanta, Georgia. Her poetry has been published in Glass Mountain Magazine, where she won the 2015 Poetry Contest, as well as Colonnades: The Art and Literary Journal of Elon University. Additionally, she received an honorable mention in North Carolina State University's 2015 Poetry Contest.
Emily Cinquemani currently lives, works, and writes in Atlanta, Georgia. Her poetry has been published in Glass Mountain Magazine, where she won the 2015 Poetry Contest, as well as Colonnades: The Art and Literary Journal of Elon University. Additionally, she received an honorable mention in North Carolina State University's 2015 Poetry Contest.