I’m looking
looking at this cross-section of time past
of our love before it was dusty,
at a
photo I snapped of you
spontaneously on your bed.
It’s of your eyes
and nose and
mouth,
     traces of what the razor
missed,
the shadows and light and all the things that
make up one’s
glance at any given time.

It’s nice to have these photos
it is
because many times I can look at them for a
long
         time
and smell soap and feel cotton shirts
and hear the chaos seeping through that
vent in your floor
etc.
In this picture though,
you were looking at me.
Not ME,
but the me that looked through the lens.
Your eyes don’t follow
Me now
as some pictures or paintings do.

You were looking at me.
The ME behind the lens and
I’m not
that me
anymore.

And I’m staring at you
now.
But you just gaze lovingly at the person
taking the picture and
           I try
real hard
to imagine,

but still I’m
not that
me
anymore.

And the You
that I look at now
is too preoccupied to look
directly at the Me
holding the frame with wet eyes.



But pictures are
nice to look at
sometimes
if
you’re not expecting
too
much, and
if
that time that your
love took your picture,
your glance at her was
faster than the shutter.