Does art capture what’s already there?
Or do you change the person with your stare?
Embarrassment began with the camera
To a very high degree.
She gazed with love at the camera.
But doesn’t she love me?
The camera courted her, and soon she couldn’t tell
Love from the object very well.
What we have to love and what we have to sell
Became mixed in everybody’s mind.
My mother left the room. Even she was unkind.
My father had been thinking of the camera all day,
But his argument faltered, the minute others had their say.
Like my father, I had arguments to make,
But I would not hear them, for my mother’s sake.
I went off alone, to read books
Which laughed at the camera—and everybody’s looks.
