Art Forgery

In what she referred to as Reverse Art,
she decided to re-create
Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”
in an arrangement of real blooms
on the kitchen table.
Afterwards she would photograph
and then paint what she saw.

She succeeded admirably
in getting every stem
in exactly the right angle,
every blossom in the perfect pose,
removing petals,
bending stems,
artificially wilting some of the buds
with a heat gun.

She had a ceramics expert
mold and paint
a precise replica
of the two-toned vase.

On completion,
she stepped back
and declared her “painting”
authentic, but a failure.

What was absent
was the startling sunlight of Provence
and the flowers’ response to it,
which was the painter’s response to it.
These flowers droop and bow
with the punishing weight
but cannot wholly absorb
the exquisite passion,
the contorted brush-strokes
of indescribable anguish.