Never, no, never.
          Kee to Vincent

Vincent's worship knows no bounds,
her face in the monstrance, cousin to sun,
she is daybreak in crow skies, the golden
wheat shining to the underfeather of wings.

He hears Kee's voice, No,
the arching, nimbus behind
Rembrandt's Christ, a sound in light,
its half moon behind everything he sees,
rising, setting, the roundness of No.
No, swift, hard, final,
turns black like a struck nail.
Never anything by halves.
No chance to plead, Uncle,
no moment to call out Why?
Faith makes flight the way away.

He believes in the meekness of Jesus,
no religion steams in the bowl,
no minister shows him God.
No church door opens with the blessing
as good as a father safe from the mines.
God is the miner's kitchen,
God is the money to feed the miner's children.

Maria says the same, No, off the streets
safe with her unborn child,
her brother sheltered in Vincent's flat.
Vincent says,
I will not try to paint Christ in the Garden of Olives,
but the glowing of the olives.

They cover him in white linen, cover him
in yellow flowers, yellow dahlias,
his canvases nailed to the wall frame
a sort of halo around him.