Cinema Egyptian

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.