You Can't Buy Shoes in a Painting

You can't even buy a soda. You can only

see these things, see a mother steer

her son to the car, his head cocked

licking his ice cream.

Earlier, driving, trying to keep

between two cornfields, I couldn't see myself

into a map, couldn't be anywhere in it,

though I knew all the patient states

between us.

Pigeons sit high on a mill's peaked roof,

spaced even as beads. They can stand that

close to each other, but looking at them

you wouldn't know it. Would you.

Copyright Credit: Jill Osier, "“You Can’t Buy Shoes in a Painting”" from (: , )

Source: Poetry (June 2005)