Document

Maggie Smith

	The day is winter bright. I blink against it.

	Each time the sun glints in my eyes,

	each time I close my lids & let them go

	orange & freckled with light,

	my mind files it into a folder

	that contains every other time

	it’s happened before: folders nested

	inside folders going back, I imagine,

	to one morning standing in my crib,

	waiting for my mother to reach down

	& lift me out, the sun keeping me

	company until her arms appeared.

	In the file: sun, sun_2, sun_3,

	sun_75, sun_700. Each a document

	I can return to & open, even revising

	old experience with new thinking.

	As if the eye has its own memory—

	not the mind’s eye but the eye’s mind—

	cataloging material it claims as its own.

	Cataloging as long as I live. Sun_7000,

	sun_final, sun_final_revised, sun_final_final.