She was turning the pages of an expensive book

on a coffee table, even though we were drinking tea,

a book of colorful paintings

a landscape, a portrait, a still life,

a field, a face, a pear and a knife, all turning on the table.

Men had entered there but no girl or boy

had come out, I was thinking oddly

as she stopped at a page of clouds

aloft in a pale sky, tinged with red and gold.

This one is my favorite, she said,

even though it was only a detail, a corner

of a larger painting which she had never seen.

Nor did she want to see the countryside below

or the portrayal of some myth

in order for the billowing clouds to seem complete.

This was enough, this fraction of the whole,

just as the leafy scene in the windows was enough

now that the light was growing dim,

as was she enough, perfectly by herself

in her place in the enormous mural of the world.