Still life defined
By absence—

Not an auspicious start
For any affair.

Where will this lack
Of circumscription end?
Why should it stop
At the brunt edges of frame?
What else is missing
From the other versions
Of reality we create
For ourselves?

This something
That has become some nothing,
Confines what most apparently
Once was there
But is no longer.

The indelineation
Of negative space
Breaks the canvas open
To the longing
For what the paint,
The artist, the lover
Has been forced
To do
Without.