Volume 3 Issue 1: Origins
After zooming out this afternoon
that held focused possibilities like a hand
reaching into the backlit arteries of a bokeh
I erased my reflections from your shutter
and tore off Fuji film rolls from your skin
still considering supposed leaps of faith, oh that
stupid obsession of yours, the way Wong Kar-wai
started reading comics because he fastened moonshine to
blown-out borders of illustrated explosions—your version
of Spider Man promised correct grammar, confessed
nonexistent dumbness, provoked strings of words I had
to cut apart in the misty blue fisheyes of a red eye flight
just to join you under Indian mango trees overexposed Nikons
subtly subdued, then someone will ask who “you” is & no
Margaritas could make me stutter your name before your lens
in the same scene on the same tripod with the same
stupidity I conclude that there was nothing stupid
about Spider Man, about your aperture, about afternoons
I’ve wasted capturing your first person plural pronouns
as stupid, stupid shots.
in our car this morning
you couldn’t stop giggling as
my new hair hopped up &
down in your rearview mir-
ror. your daughter’s auburn
bob now menacing, now foolish,
now more french than kundera’s
books you’ve borrowed because i’ve
jumped up & down reciting dialogues
in the kitchen, annoyingly. months later
dad would ask why i had not written
our initials on our hotel slippers
like i have always done, just like
before. between speed bumps
i slid into shared silences, pure
eye movements, three books
and two bookmarks, waiting
for Friday dinners, & words
served first. a summer ago
your narrator claimed my face
was dough, fourteen years ago
my protagonist claimed your
eyes were red like the mole
sisters, now our side characters
still consider dad a ginger cat.
master of nicknames, phd in
social criticism, you could’ve
made your audience laugh yet
you said i looked the same &
my guacamole made you hungry—
you weren’t even hungry before.