Silent Movie

Phillip Brown

In the dark box
of my bedroom at night
everything is rendered colorless—
shadowy forms receding
from sight—and I
strain to distinguish
between chair, desk,
and bookcase.

The window across the room
is bright, in contrast,
and looks like a movie screen
set in a frame,

lit by the pale lamp of the moon,
flickering slightly
as if, perhaps, it is a little old
and almost spent.

The scene outside
plays slowly and without a sound—
no music, no lines spoken—
like some silent movie:

a tree brooding alone
with a moth fluttering
inside the dark bones
of its branches
like a tiny, winged heart.

And I watch, stirred
by the landscape that
opens and unfolds before me
in this solitary theater,
until my eyes grow tired,
and I lie down in my bed

aglow in the ambient light
of the film, still playing.