Still Life with Captions
This evening feels like a date with Braque –
lamplight monochrome, bottle and plate
tessellated, crumpled napkin broken into glass
shards, tablecloth shapes interlocking,
overlapping. Until I ate them, the chicken
and broccoli were perfectly spaced on the plate.
I peeled onions for the sauce that fell in trans-
lucent layers like days, but when I diced them
they became just a formal element on the
page. Even my thoughts are captions in papiers
collés: just words in typed letters like Remember?
and Wouldn’t it be nice? Perhaps it’s a trick
of the light, or wishful thinking, but the salt
and pepper shakers are moving slowly now like
planets to the edges of space, away from
ordered patterns within the confines of this frame