Monday Poem

That's All She Wrote

There sits my self
near a window in the sun
its feet up on a sill

There, beside the begonia
whose rose-tinged leaves are satin,
succulent and still

then, as now, taking down
and making up the tale of itself,
a concocting troubadour
in sight of a star above a pine,
past noon remembering,
telling the story of itself to itself
becoming itself,
spinning its character
from threads of the old and
new seconds it stitches into 
its suit of being,
as clear as the nose
on the face of itself
(but strange too as it tells and tells),
who reads between the lines of itself
following the story's lead
back to the start of itself
in the beginning
before which, and beyond the end leaf,
there's nothing to tell itself
of itself —that's all she wrote
more would be as silent
as a song without a note


by Jim Culleny 1/23/13