A frown,

like his orange-painted Dutch hair,

often fit unsettlingly comfortable

onto Vincent’s pale, slim face

that his catholic mother had so begrudgingly given him.

She would

sometimes, with slow purpose,

take his small hands

in her own

and try, with his nubby fingers as tools,

to smooth out the tiny,

forked wrinkles that clouded the space between his thin, girlish eyebrows.

Sighing

deep, she removed her hands

and brought them up

to cover her own face

and

wonder

the terrors and illness

lurking,

dormant,

inside of his mind.