Deciding Origins (1)

Here's this chest of drawers     /this match
of oval mirrors and mattings     /this one door opened
into light     /this daylight hinted

on plank walls     /and on the horizontal trimboard
where more pictures brood     /unframed
and propped and curling through seasons.  The

explanation's more or less reliable.  But
what were they saying there—     in Denver/Anchorage
— or asking themselves who gaze as asked

/with this bright light wine and tapered bottle
set between     /expecting the powder's flash
in the rain-light's afterglow     /so that it's anybody's

guess     /and we are kept remembering
guessing what shades these were     /which navy blues
and lavenders     /which daylight stretched

/how many forms of company?  And
on that chest of drawers     /among all sides of family,
two cousin bottles sit     /so that these faces

here     /and what they have said of triumphing     /said
in the range of first mistakes made right by dreaming
/these faces we have known old

/in anybody's guesses     /known in the eyes
and brows and the expressions of the grandkids—     they
gaze ahead as asked by someone with a camera

and in the body heat so caught     /the more
surprised and curious.                                                                     

 

© Appetite (2)