Window Frames

So small the window frames the whole of it,
but only briefly, driving past;
a fleeting photograph no one would take—
only barren hills in Southern Canada,
as she passes on her way to Michigan.
Just snapshot moments, less permanent
than hills framed by the window in her bedroom
where she slept in her parent’s house.

The family moved when she was seven
and she got to choose first, since she was oldest.
She was first to leave too, with new places waiting.

She’s outgrown twin beds, and the room
that has always been slightly too small
but she liked the family of doves that built a nest
outside and sang in the morning, and she liked
the view of the backyard with hills framed in her window.