Chitra Ganesh, How to Assemble a Flying Car (detail), 2018, linocut on tan BFK Rives. Courtesy of the artist & Durham Press.
A Kind of Camera
Through which the eye learns how to render
the entire valley. We also need a sample,
somehow, of the bad lighting
our mothers have been photographed in—
their heels clicking in 4/4 time,
which alone has hurled them
back like those reverse Hendrix solos
from Axis Bold As Love
they were never meant for.
Another way of locating what’s been lost
is through a long marooning
with a medal of St. Anthony
and an empty canvas—
to muse out the corpuscles
of old subjects tirelessly
all the rest of our lives.
What we objectify to find again.
The last fact of it is
it will be dark in one hour.
The masculine backdrops of late day
crouch like fired men
on the border of a train yard
and a huge abyss.
Christopher Salerno has published two books of poetry, most recently Minimum Heroic (Mississippi Review Press, 2010). New or recent poems can be found in Boston Review, AGNI, Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, Jubilat, and others. He teaches at North Carolina State University. (updated 6/2010)