The photograph is aged. The red leeched away,
leaving more blue green so it appears aqueous,
the entire piece older, rare because of it.
The picture shows a window within what appears to be
a bedroom wall. The window frames within it the outside,
a river, perhaps an outlet to the sea. It crosses the picture
and is gone. There’s a rowboat tethered below the horizon
at a small dock on a creek that leads to greater water.
It rests beneath my eye, waiting as if to catch someone
who might leap into it. I have no idea where this photo
came from. Did it arrive with someone in my family,
is it somewhere I should know? How long ago?
I look into that photograph, out the window, wish
I could leap into that rowboat, follow the current
to the sea, to a wide world that beckons me
to explore all there is to discover beyond
a hidden shore far past this unknown room.