At my kitchen table, you teach me
to pay a certain attention to the world,
a watercolor lesson—
focal point, brushes, perspective—
What
Draws the Eye?
Later, I take your lesson on an evening walk
everywhere
I look a focal point a shape
a new perspective
Which is why you saw me
dazed and open-mouthed near the park—
conducting an experiment
in shifting focal point—green
shadows of pine on the ridge, or
abandoned mitten in spring mud at
my feet?
Children’s voices rise from the ball field
over all these shifting pictures, this pure
sound of focal point, light and high,
like a flock of small
excited birds
Puff Of Smoke Poems 