Still Life with Dynamite
I wanted proof of my existence,
something pulsing with life, tangible
to display as evidence for passersby.
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 is no 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;
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)
