Scraps

She sits at the dining room table,
pen in hand-elbow to arm
props up her left love,
where logic once lived.

She wants me to believe,
by witnessing how hard she is thinking,
that she can find the right answers,
on her own
while I mindlessly match corners of cloth
on the couch.

There was a new way about her
that noticeably tilted the room
or cast the light
in her favor
across our stretch of space.

Don't look, she demanded
placing her body in front of
her painting.
I won't, I confirm
and see anyway.

When I leave the living room,
I can feel her listening
to the cabinet door whine,
the dresser drawers stomp,
she is wondering about
room for living.

She questions where I put things
away
for now
she knows
my thoughts
and where I would keep them.

She was always watching these,
grabbing them
in the thin air
and keeping them
for later.


Painting by Vilhelm Hammershøi, c. 1904 in [Public domain].