Occam’s razor
against my skin

I search for precious things

your breath
unexpected friends
ephemera

my soul resonates
(music on the stereo)

I bend and twist
from still life to still life

pausing
leaping
holding
breathing

I see over the trees
hills shaking
turbulent yellow
in crushed velvet skies

like matches flaring
along frost covered canals
in the cold anticipation
of still breath mornings,

and these are
the moments of which I speak

these jeweled moments,
like boxes of photographs,
names written in fading ink
on the back of relatives
(standing in their own lights)

I see the old hand,
arm stretched across
the lower third,

rough round table
like a potter’s wheel
with cup and saucer.

I contemplate
the beauty of the arm,
relaxed,
the simple beauty
of light and glass,
the subtle beauty
of truth,

and the love of arms and tables
living in silver.

And in the choosing
there is a severing
a drawing of lines
a taking of sides

the distance of memories
and the presence of knowing
frozen in sun carved shadows

but nothing is like the real
the way this world
is handed to us

windows and icons
reality through lenses
a world circumscribed
so that we might dream
beyond the frame

I surface
through my life

angels lift me
devils push

my breath
light
short and shallow

my past, my future

a thin line
clipped with snapshots
gently tugging
at my cuffs

I float
oil on water
spreading thinner
and thinner

emulsion
barely revealing
a pale image
of a fragile earth

my eyes open
dark and still
like pools
under frail, slender skies

and I am thinking…

I’ll know you
by your eyes
the touch of your hand
your silhouette in the door
propping it open

and this is the world
wrapped around me

this is the revealing
of my breath
the photograph clutched
the heart enveloped in flesh

and the world is light

The wind gentle
in the leaves;
a portion of the tree
(blossom white mixed with green)
in the cracking window
framed and set apart

an idea
showing its torso

As I move
the tree shifts
(ideas shifting)
now another idea
now another
now the corner of the house
but still only a portion
in the shifting frame

Listening I hear
the song of the frame
sweet and bitter
like a tender heart
on the hi-fi

like teeth sharpened
on the day

and the difference
of silver and light
is the distance
from here to the door