You walk through my door bleary-eyed, carrying
your soap and shampoo before you in a basket,
the lantern of a man seeking honest men.
The light of this sun is not enough to see by,
too often is it dimmed through the iron
slit windows of our room. You say you
came here for confirmation, but I catch you watching
water stains creep across the sky and know you came
only to try to see. Light filters through your camera and
glasses onto a stiff silver sheet. With these lenses
you receive the world: man in gas mask invites
apocalypse, jacketed girl stands at edge of cliff,
tree hanging from bridge burns like votive candle.
I hope that you see through the lie that dreams,
like hopeless ducks, die before they hit the reeds,
that yours does not already carry lead in its breast,
the arc of its fall predetermined, remaining only
to be captured in the photograph of a squinting boy.
