The Beam

The light came through at ten in the morning,

that specific angle where it catches

everything you've been ignoring.

The particles suspended in the beam

like the room had been growing something

in the dark,

cultivating this small climate,

this accumulation

you'd stopped seeing weeks ago

because you see things every day

and then you stop seeing them,

and then they become real again

only when the light

tells you they're there.

Your furniture is outlined in it,

the shelf where you set things down

and forget about them,

the dresser you never dust,

the corner where the window frame

meets the wall

and nobody bothers to reach.

It's not dirty, exactly.

It's just been there,

settling like sediment,

like time made visible,

like the weeks you weren't looking

finally given a shape,

a texture,

a small proof

that you don't pay attention

to your own life.

The beam moves as the sun does.

In an hour it will be gone,

and the dust will be invisible again,

and you'll go back to not noticing,

to moving through rooms

as if they're clean,

as if you're clean,

as if the world isn't constantly

settling on you

in these small, invisible ways.

But right now, in this beam,

you can see it all,

and you don't move.

You just stand there

watching the light

show you what you've been

becoming all along.