Flashes
by Lexi Wolfe
–After “Coal Barges” by Vincent van Gogh, 1888
I used the charcoal on my art to burn it alive. Among the ashes, the three figures that spread their bodies in the sand watched the sunset with smoldering eyes. One of them stood up and said, “Let’s build a boat to sail this sea of sorrows.” They rode the wooden waters on cigarettes and bristle-tips. They prayed to me who prays to Him to scrape off the colors portraying their pain, which pulled them into dashes of almond bark and potato peels. They dumped their money into the waves, and their money was coal, and they said they need not be warm this winter, because they could set fire to the sea. “We’ll render this sea alight!” they said, but the sun, frightened, put its head under the blanket of the horizon, and the sunflower petals grew dim, and the orange world was extinguished, and the boat tipped off the canvas’ edge, and the figures plunged into the water to rescue their sunken coal, and they sold it to Romance, who spat in their eyes when she got soot under her fingernails, and the passion burned in her while the three cremated their boat. Above, I started over, and mixed their tears with charcoal to make the paint I spread onto their tired faces. They learned the grass was greener in the sky.
Wolfe is a young writer from Birmingham, Alabama. Her work has been previously commended by the High School Literary Arts Awards and the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, among others. Most days, she can be found with a cup of overpriced tea and a conceptually unusual movie.