Portrait
Portrait
In the window he smoked a cigarette–
that is to say, at the window
he lit a cigarette and spoke
to the silence around him.
The silence, like leaves falling down
from the top right corner of the frame,
the way trees outside windows look from bed,
sounded like a thing, a thing
like the repetition of the windows
of the buildings across the way
where others could look in and see him.
And she could see him from within: the whole.
And he could see something else from, without, the hole
–meaning he stood by the window and smoked.