The Light Cone
is the spreading set of all possible points
touched by a moment’s flash, or,
inverted, all possible places whose
rays might have reached this origin.
What looks like sunbeams angling down
through clouds to brush the rippled lake
becomes, with time reversed, the reach
of reflected light toward its closing home.
That sun on the horizon trapped within
its own projected reach still spills
over to become the sky itself—yet water
reflects its thin line of unlikeliness.
And what can we say of this horizontal
fog, neither up nor down, dividing nothing
from itself—can we imagine the place
it all converges, before and after eyes?
Timothy Yu
