I. The Frame

I. The Frame

Nothing means anything.

Light strikes the sink.

A moth hits the porch bulb

again and again.

Someone coughs in the next room.

The refrigerator keeps breathing.

A tree falls somewhere beyond town

without asking to be heard.

Still, we live otherwise.

A sentence enters us

and keeps moving for years.

A face at a gas station

follows us home.

A song on bad speakers

changes the weather inside the body.

My friend carried an empty frame

through the city.

Gold leaf.

No painting.

No glass.

He lifted it toward a brick wall,

a parking lot puddle,

the shoulder of a stranger.

And suddenly

everything inside the rectangle

began arranging itself.

Blue beside rust.

Shadow beside handrail.

A cigarette ember

holding together the corner of dusk.

Nothing changed.

But everyone looked twice.