Aperture

As if we any of us came into focus

more than once or twice a month: the whirr

of the camera and the rasp of the shutter

giving news of aperture, the quick
 

opening of glossy black, the widening pupil,

the short-breathed sobs of coming or of grief;

and then the shutter falls. A quiet comes.

We pull on snaggy knits and clumsy button shirts;
 

we dry our eyes on anything at hand. Before

our hearts return to their horizon note

we are forgetting and our eyes are filming over,

sticky with the kitchen grease of days.