Let Me Look At You
Stand up against this here
wall. Were you always this
tall. I’ll show you, put my
hand where your head is
now. Step back, and look:
your height, how much space
for your body to rise. This is
how others experience your
presence, I wish you could
feel this. The mirror places its
heel over you, squishes,
invents a version of your face,
flipped, flattened. Can you
blink when I do, stare and
think at time so it steadies,
gripped in your open lashes.
Take a look, we say, as we
might reach for a wall, a
light switch, the emergency
brake, to pull and release.
"This is / how others experience // your presence. . . ." and that concluding stanza are standouts for me.
ReplyDeleteLove how you interpreted the artwork.
The poetic is the gap in between, and you navigate it marvelously here.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait for the sequel: I wish you could hear yourself, not in the tape recorder but...
I had to smile from midway all the way down. When I stand in front of the mirror I am always aware that my mirror image is not my real image and wonder how it is seen through other eyes...the mirror does make a version of us : ) Clever and artful as always!
ReplyDelete"invents a version of your face"
ReplyDeleteI like that line.
The image is fabulous, and I love the idea of the mirror messing with my image, have been trying to get used to the non-mirror version of my face in Martin's photos of me.
ReplyDelete