THE TRUE MEANING OF PICTURES

I never trusted in my ability
To wish for fear
Of misapprehending the implications

Of my desires, much
Less the desires
Themselves, like the sheer

Absurdity of trying
To hit a certain cloud
With a certain color

Balloon, all the while crossing
Your fingers that the winds will hold
It in shape, I do

Hope the rain will stay
Aloft until I reach the zoo
Today, so that

I might see what kind of lonely
Creatures they’ve got locked
Up there, though lonelier is better

Than dead, I can tell
You, from a trip
To the San Francisco Zoo years

Ago, where we momentarily lost
Our Frisbee in the giraffe pen, until
Colin was brave or stupid

Enough to retrieve it, little index
Cards gracing the cages
Everywhere, lamenting the dead by

Their demeaning stage
Names: Bongo, Quiggly, etc.
Also the orangutan

Who watched us with such scorn, only
To turn his back, put on his chiffon
Robe and walk away, and since then I have felt

That way many times, alternatively
Wondering who it is this
Show actually entertains and then realizing

The answer must be myself, it’s sort
Of like moonlighting
As both the actor and director in a film

About the fantastic terror of existence, a comedy
Of course, and you just get so fucking lost
In the production that it’s only when piss is literally running

Down your leg that the set lights come
On and you remember to call cut, wherewithal
Rubbing its paste-caked eyes

Somewhere in the back
Of your neck and the question
Remains as to who exactly

Is shouldering the camera? You? The poem? I
Have seen pictures, only
Yesterday I watched a man’s Bradburyian

Tattoos leap from his torso and fly
Around the woods in search
Of a small girl, a woman in the row before

Mine swiping at the space above
Her head as if it were 1895 and we
Were caught in the path

Of a silent train, as if the earth
Were truly hurtling through
A widening sea of air we cannot breathe

I see pictures every day and by
God there is as much
Truth in them as in any shifting

Collection of thoughts, everywhere
I go people
Point out my wounds

And I can’t contemplate
The fact of having walked
The city these few weeks

Past with a gaping hole
In my leg, it’s abominable
The way we let

Our feelings instruct
Us and yet
It is the only thing

To be done, right? Right?