Retrospect.

A Knife, a Fork and a Plate in Still Life, 12/9/01

The sudden calm of cutlery:
you can't see the gaps of air
between the pieces as they fell the forty feet
at different speeds, or the sound they made
on impact. It's impossible
to note the time it took for the crash to subside,
before the ripples of clatter faded into air.

It makes the layer of dust that must have gathered
slowly seem impossible as if
it absorbed the sound itself, a softened world
where every step is like a moon-landing
in fast-forward or reverse.