Box

You talk and you make a point and you draw

a large rectangular picture frame in the space between us

and just like that the space takes up residence in our conversation

because now we are predisposed to seeing one another

by virtue of the box now named and hanging there.

I didn’t see the space when I came in

so now I’m vaguely aware of the need to apologize

that I didn’t formalize it in the first place

but instead rudely waited for you to point it out

by constructing the frame for us both.

As big as that thing is, it must be very heavy and ornate.

Did you know making them is a whole little sub-industry?

I hear museum curators slave over such choices

in the belief that the wood around the paint editorially adds something or other.

Do you, by your pointing, mean to capture something of the moment

as though suddenly realizing you forgot your paint and brushes?

Because this moment, though suffused with such great light from your side,

is just another mundane tick of the clock from where I sit.

And how is it that what I perceive as so average

is worth taking the time to memorialize?

I suppose I could come over to your side and look

but I can tell you right now what I would see:

blank brown walls behind a plain table,

and an empty chair between them.

Torey Lightcap