( "yours & mine" - alice fulton )

through your lens the sequoia swallowed me like a dryad. the camera flashed & forgot. i, on the other hand, must practice my absent- mindedness, memory being awkward as a touch that goes unloved. lately your eyes have shut down to a shade more durable than skin’s. i know you love distance, how it smooths. you choose an aerial view, the city angled to abstraction, while i go for the close exposures: poorly-mounted countenances along broadway, the pigweed cracking each hardscrabble backlot. it’s a matter of perspective: yours is to love me from a block away & mine is to praise the grain-iness that weaves expressively: your face.