ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS
Sequence: 3
MY FATHER'S GRADUATION PORTRAIT
your youth faded far more swiftly
than this image of it
whose smile still leans out into the world
and whose eyes though they have never seen anything
seem to touch everything
the image fades only slowly
and retains to the last its initial form
and then? it is nothing it has done nothing
but hang on to a trivial moment of your life
when the photographer called for your attention
and a smile
this image is nothing and engendered nothing
because it did not depend on the continuance of a heartbeat
it only needed itself and some stiff paper
and therefore it outlasted you and came
into these days of mine which are almost as many
as you ever had
came into these days and before my eyes
which really look really see
not like those eyes of the image
dead from the moment the shutter closed