Matthew Thorburn

Obituary                                  

—Josephine Hopper, oil on canvas, no date

Let the cat have it, whatever’s
left of love. When I died
I gave my paintings to the Whitney
but they gave them away
to city hospitals that put some up
but mostly didn’t. Mostly passed
them on or tossed
them out, so they disappeared
like I did. But it made my afterlife
lighter, as if I hung them in a house
and burned down the house.
See my cat peek past the curtain?
Her bright collar echoes
the blue vase. That was Ed’s—
ice blue as he was. An iceberg
at an easel. Everything else
is brown, gray, tan and off-white
like these flowers I arranged.
Dry, brittle now, a touch turns
them to crumbs. There was something
I loved in the way an autumn wind
carries down leaves. As if it’s snowing.
As if death can be beautiful.
An obituary means you’re gone
but I kept my hand in. Not the one
I painted with. The one that holds back
the curtain for the cat, then lets go.

MATTHEW THORBURN is the author of the books String, a novel in poems; The Grace of Distance, a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize; and the book-length poem Dear Almost, which won the Lascaux Prize. He received a 2025 Finalist Award from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.