Paint

The words come forth to touch the paint.
How strange the fingers of the mind

touch it differently. Have we turned the corner
on being us, we wonder.

The painting seems doubtful of our presence,
even in the museum where our shoes

make funny sounds. The trees in the painting
want to talk about what part of being trees

is probably fake. We listen a little while
because it is Sunday. We may leave

the lover who accompanied us that day
in the museum. Slowly we dry like paint

into some lives but not others. A long-gone Sunday
comes forth to watch us. But don’t touch.

There is a guard somewhere. The painted trees
seem exactly the same. The secret of being

absolutely anyone is paint. The illusion
of patience is preferable to the real thing.