I didn’t take that picture

I didn’t take that picture through the hospital window.

The one with the sign in the background,

neon-green and sickly.

The one with the airplane trails ripping through stained council glass.

I didn’t take that picture then but I remember now,

the vivid outside sneering at cheap local artwork,

its quiet sobs of paint and

an inappropriate radio

screaming jungle to the muted turmoils in 

1. every 
2. separate
3. womb.

I didn’t take that picture because I didn’t want to remember.

I didn’t take that picture, but somehow I still snip that shot and dogear the corners of the photo they gave us in

wondrous terror

in fearful train track

tick-tock 

interminable 

unceasing

hope.

That’s why I didn’t take it.

I didn’t want to suffer the sound between fireworks,

the merry go round of distance and discharge. I couldn’t bear the echoing space between a stain on a pad or

a line on a stick.

I couldn’t hold these things

neither

breadth

nor narrowness;

capacity

nor economy.