The Frozen Moment (Poetry)

i.m. HM

The photograph is not the man —
it is the patterning of light caught on his skin —
a pleasant dream of someone — flesh unseen
and not enough to judge if we’d be friends
should we have met —
if ever our lives had chanced to cross
in the years we shared this earth.

And yet —
I look — I gaze and sense something connect —
a sympathy not linked to intellect —
it is an altogether baser — blinder — hard to fathom
thing too fragile to be reasoned with —
a fancy that endures.

A portrait of a young man in his prime
or fast-approaching it — good-looking too —
his eyes the portals where the past stared through
and saw mirrors everywhere reflecting back
what most had missed — the detail in the hush —
the frozen moment that precedes the rush.

The camera trapped him — held his image so
his freedom to be old was compromised — expression set
unchangeable for decades now and safely dead —
no fear of stalkers — fans in thrall who having read
his words — can’t help imagining that romance can
be conjured from a likeness — true —
but only this one glimpse — a chimera — the kind
that fosters invitations to engage —
some interaction with the moveless shadow he’s become —
the mortal man long-gone.