Shutterbugs

Shutterbugs

We sit for the photo wetting our lips

you, eyes cast up in that way

you have, me forgetting to lower my

chin, dreading the soul draining

flash, turning my head to the left when I

hear right, captured nose to ear

in the dream I had last night, the final

scene in a strange film cut

by brooding chimps with racing minds in tire

swings, inspired perhaps by

a young woman framing a shot on the

street, my guess a student, hunched

and shrouded, man-handling her bulky big

box camera, sturdy tripod throwing

a water tower shadow.

A lot of trouble to go through for one

lousy picture, planted there,

a rock in a torrent of camera’s

all light as smoke, pretense thin,

sly viruses mutating in happy

hosts infecting each other

for posterity, stepping outside each

moment, half-life proof it had
not been one long inexplicable dream.