Daylight Creeping Around a Back Room

At a motel in Idaho,
An oddly located back room
Creates two L-turns to the bath.

At daybreak, sun seeps in past blinds
Next to the beds. Pad to the back
Quietly. Don’t disturb the late

Sleeper in the other queen bed.
Don’t turn on the light in the bath.
Some daylight has found its way here,

And, abruptly, in that gray light
Two removes from a window, and
Three removes from dawn thanks to drapes,

You wonder about the photons.
Have these arrived here from the sun,
A wave of nuclear fusion

Sending them eight minutes through space,
Through Earth’s gaseous atmosphere,
Bouncing off parking-lot cement,

Caroming past thin gaps in drapes,
Banking from wall to wall to wall,
To illuminate this small room

With the faint glow of their last gasp
Reflected into your pupils
And sinking for good in your skull?

Is there any accuracy
In imagining a photon
As an entity journeying

The whole way from stellar fusion
To somehow end up in your head?
Don’t be silly. It’s just a wave,

And you’re just some waves commingling
On palely phosphorescent shores,
Light in the head. Go back to bed.