'You Can't Buy Shoes in a Painting'
by Jill Osier

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.