You're the kind who looks at a painting
and wonders what's happening beyond

the stretched canvas, where it wraps
around the wood frame, as if
it were a detail from a larger work

or, like a photograph, one small scene
inside a wider one, curated by the eye.

You wonder what's beyond
the bowl of fruit, beyond the gray sea
with its meal of wrecked ships,

beyond the mother holding her burning,
red-cheeked child. You're the kind

who thinks there must be more
than this, more than what you see.
The kitchen might be filling with bees,

drawn buzzing to the bowl of red
and yellow apples. And the waves,

the waves might be ruffling white
and folding over on themselves--
breaking, breaking like a fever.

---
-- Maggie Smith, "Detail" from her new volume, *A Suit or a Suitcase*

#TodaysPoem #MaggieSmith #Poetry