Flight

The valentine of desire is pasted over my heart
and still we are not touching, like things


in a poorly done still life
where the knife appears to be floating over the plate
which is itself hovering above the table somehow,


the entire arrangement of apple, pear and wineglass
having forgotten the law of gravity,
refusing to be still,


as if the painter had caught them all
in a rare moment of slow flight


just before they drifted out of the room
through a window of perfectly realistic sunlight.

"Not Touching"
Poem by Billy Collins
"Questions About Angels",
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991

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Photos 1, 4 and 5 taken at Demel's,
no. 2 at MuseumsQuartier, and no. 3 at Café Diglas.

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