Roy Herndon Smith
Comes this moment when
anything seen—the slant of
light and shadow on
the grid of shingles
on the slant of the grey roof
framed by the window
with aloes snaking
and dark with a glow of green
in the foreground and
closer the toilet
with an edge of white light on
the rim of the tank,
the rest in shadows,
all and more framed again in
the slant of the full-
length mirror framed by
the shadowed white of the door,
the out-of-focus
rest of the even
closer foreground blurring in
a horizon of
light, shadows, and shapes—
bookcases, a stool, Walter’s
dream of a sleek black
recliner, the lit
laptop screen—is a painting
never seen before,
framed in a painting
never seen before, nested
in layers of frames
of paintings never
seen before, blurring into
seeing and being,
seeing and painting,
and paintings and not paintings,
light, shadows, and shapes,
never seen before,
never been before, this moment,
again, this moment.
dust 