restaurant wall

A picture frame
in wood
of wood
in wood surround

I’d like to catch
the right–angle pattern
reflect in the photograph
its poisoned form

I’d mock
just the top square
making clear the grain
avoid the film pun

so you could spend
ten moments’ echo
reracing boyhood cars
along its lines

but it can’t work
the sides are always
cropped by window
within the third

and at the front
the few whole rectangles
have been renewed
in formica

well it’s not
but it’s too new
to have aged
enough of grain
to a fascinated fore

the rivers fade
the racing boats
would ground