To Know What's Unbecoming

The mystery of the sense of plain moments
Which never appear plain on inspection,
Not the kid on the rented couch watching cartoons,
Not the mother in the old, borrowed bed dozing,
Not the songs of the studio recorded for the cartoons
Pulled out of the invisible orchestration of the air,

Not the visible air outside the deep-set window
In familiar blue and gold, morning in the trees,
Reflections from the lake way down below,
Not the grumbling of the refrigerator motor in the cabin
Where the kid is on the couch, the mother is in the bed,
The father is barefoot on the smooth floorboards,
No fire in the the wood stove, too warm this morning,
This unremarkable, impossible morning
That is every combination of these phenomena
And was real and no longer exists.