A. Van Jordan
So much to take in
but so hard to imagine now.
The close ups, the eyeliner,
spirit gum under moustaches,
all caught in the flash,
all revived in retinas. I look
and want to recall the first look
through the camera’s focus,
sharpening against Edwin Porter’s
eye socket, but the view offers
an innocence I cannot experience. I try
again wanting to recall the first glow
from the balcony, a year later,
sharpening against a Negro viewer’s
skin, but the view offers
a danger I no longer can face.
The story unfolds from another story
like all stories do. I don’t know
how the first light projected in the dark
struck a couple on their first date,
watching stories no one in attendance could say
they saw before, flashing in their eyes,
but, I do know about trying to capture
seduction before the train
comes into the station of my heart, faster,
closer, than seems possible…
And what about it? Don’t laugh at the fear
of the man sitting next to you in his seat, but
ask yourself, honestly, just how long you can
train your eye on your own near destruction?