To get started I will accept
anything that occurs to me.
—William Stafford
But what happens when nothing occurs
to you, just your black and gray reflection
in a kitchen window, an older self
you otherwise haven’t yet conjectured?
With the panes clean and the outside
winter world predictably darker
than at this same time yesterday,
the double exposure you could call
Haggard Face over Exterior Scene
is like Community Ed. photography,
amateur-hour art work, a first-ditch effort
to mean something significant.
But then the dark subsides,
the framed face fades,
and there is just that world.