still life with dynamite
i wanted proof of my existence,
something pulsing with life, and tangible
to display as evidence for passers-by.
i wanted thick black brushstrokes to immortalize
your eyebrows and nostrils,
the sloping plane of my lover’s back,
the yielding skin of a ripe pear.
but today i realize life isn’t a possession,
that looking through the camera lens
i miss what is cut out of the frame.
a soft pencil attempting to organize your anatomy
keeps me from tracing your skin with my palms instead.
today i cannot live through words or pictures,
these interpretations.
tomorrow i will set down my instruments of memoralization;
tomorrow i will be preoccupied with the world.
i will accept time, and fill it
with the airy bricks of memory,
rearrangeable and removable;
i will remember
to keep a pocket empty for silence,
to travel well, and light.
(reprinted with thanks from Porcupine, 2006)