A Different Eye

Roughing it in Mexico

A Different Eye

The floor tiles in my room at this cheap hotel
--Unbaked, from a back-street workshop, smudged with dye,
Pressed in a pan, removed and left to dry,
Carelessly laid, on cement by no means level--
Straggle from wall to crudely painted wall.
A box with no top in the corner, a chair in front,
Made with the rudest tools, its seat of straw--
Attractive lodgings command a higher rate!

Taped to the wall,above, a dusty print
Of a room in Provence in 1888:
Same tile, same walls, identical yellow chair--
But Vincent happened to be living there.


Barra de Navidad, January 17, 2007.

Note: There is a photograph of a print of the same picture in the album

Pictures. Mostly connected to my poems.  (E) Selected photographs. #1167737 by Bill Kinahan