Snapshot
The camera cuts away
an edge of action,
a cornered eye-lid's art
of fiction. At a snip,
the world is hedged
by a ginger snap. Part
of life, part-true,
is posed imposingly
while shutters are banged
or simply closed, like
frozen smiles. The iris
pinholes the hanged
man, the very image
of our upside down.
Terrified, the thumb
screws on the nerve
and slews a portrait
half-askew. For some,
the focus is bogus
as beggary, blinding
subjects in a bowl
of light, a vexed flash,
a jiggery-pocus, mere
gadgetry. The whole
is nearly part of the next
hole, a neat square.
The photo cannot fix
its object, angling
oddly off-target to
what the camera picks.