Your Face! ! Poem by SEEMA SHARMA

Through your lens the cypress family swallowed me
like a nymph of the woods.
The camera flashed & dismissed from the mind.
I, on the other hand, must practice my absent-
mindedness, memory being awkward as a touch
that goes unloved.
Lately your eyes have shut
down to a shade more durable than skin's.
I know you love the passing play, how it smooths.
You choose an aerial view,
the city angled to abstraction, while I go for the close
exposures: poorly-mounted visages along Broadway,
the greeens cracking each meager backlot.
It's a matter of perspective: yours is to love me
from a block away & mine is to praise the coarseness
that weaves expressively: your face.