"Gauguin's Grandson" by Paul Hostovsky

"Arearea" Paul Gauguin 1892

was named Paul Gauguin,

too. He was an artist,

too. He lived in Denmark

in his grandfather’s shadow

all his life. And he chafed

against that shadow.

Like living under a rock—

a rock as big as the biggest

island in French Polynesia.

He painted only insects.

Insects that live under rocks—

beetles, ants, centipedes,

pill bugs. In a later period,

he painted only his wife Marta

in only her long black hair

and horn-rimmed glasses.

Toward the end of his life

he made hundreds of collages

of orthopterous insects—

katydids, mantids, cicadas,

crickets and grasshoppers

with long hind legs for jumping

or, you could say, flying;

and for making a rasping, chafing

sound or, you could say, song.

"Gauguin's Grandson" by Paul Hostovsky from The Bad Guys. © Future Cycle Press, 2015.