I read in the paper today was the birthday
of the artist Jasper Johns, 95.
I didn’t realize he was still alive.
I remember him from Art History classes
fifty years ago in college,
his works on display at the BMA.

This sometimes happens,
an actor or a singer I’d assumed dead
shows up in a story in the newspaper,
very much alive.

And yet I often dream one or the other
of my deceased brothers
is still living, often a dream
about an argument we’re having,
and when I wake up,
I’m still pretty sure they’re alive.
I have to remind myself they’re not.
It comes as a mild surprise,
as if I’ve fallen for somebody’s practical joke.

Johns’ flags and maps, targets, symbols,
the fluidity of meaning. My dreams?
How life can be as ambiguous as art.

Charles Rammelkamp is Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books in Baltimore. A collection of persona poems and dramatic monologues involving burlesque stars, The Trapeze of Your Flesh, was recently published by BlazeVOX Books. His collection, The Tao According to Calvin Coolidge, has just been published by Kelsay Books.