Document
By Maggie Smith
The day is winter bright. I blink against it.
Each time the sun glints in my eyes,
each time I close my lids & let them go
orange & freckled with light,
my mind files it into a folder
that contains every other time
it’s happened before: folders nested
inside folders going back, I imagine,
to one morning standing in my crib,
waiting for my mother to reach down
& lift me out, the sun keeping me
company until her arms appeared.
In the file: sun, sun_2, sun_3,
sun_75, sun_700. Each a document
I can return to & open, even revising
old experience with new thinking.
As if the eye has its own memory—
not the mind’s eye but the eye’s mind—
cataloging material it claims as its own.
Cataloging as long as I live. Sun_7000,
sun_final, sun_final_revised, sun_final_final.
Notes:
“Document” copyright © 2026 by Maggie Smith. From the forthcoming book A Suit or a Suitcase by Maggie Smith to be published by Washington Square Press/Atria Books, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC. Printed by permission.
Source: Poetry (January/February 2026)