If it’s a good film, I forget my face.
A shock to see it again
so private across the bathroom sink:
yet how lucid the cut
of heat across my cheek, how plain
the fretwork of the current season.
Like everything else, it’s a matter of light.
Your looks I recall, render
swept, unsurpassably close, brushed
in gilt from their own halation,
work of detail, stroke, soft hair
clamped in by ferrule—
I always thought, never tried, to be a painter.
In this state, I remember my face
about as well as I can draw
an empty mirror.
Back in the darkened cinema,
lips apart, line softened—you a flash
like memory past its tooth, like
a cool coin warming
in a well
of green water. Light spreads beyond the edges;
open the latch, woman,
with thumb and finger.
There isn’t a thing you can make.