The close-up is the skewing of
ordinary seeing*
Developing proofs I watch
my mother’s face float
into black/white being.
Her skin stops at the grey
of weathered timber.
Lines splinter at her eyes,
carve each side of her face,
holding fast a lifetime
of fixed parameters.
Her mouth, slightly adrift,
charts a private direction.
*Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida
That's a killer of a closing line. Wonderful. I really like the dream-like quality of this poem. It evokes that magical feeling of watching a photo develop.
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