Film Negative

A meditation on letting go.

I move through this room in frames

to the stutter of the sputtering projector casting on repeat

a film negative.

No space for sound. Shadows hung on a black wall.

Each frame a little light breaks through 

in pale flickers

where you appear!

Where you’re scratched on the celluloid,

and you look like those heroes do,

the ones we scratched on our bedposts.

In a primordial scene of you; of youth,

your hands go down your shorts…and back out your shorts

and we trace the wind with no hands.

All while the light stretches you to a ray of silver

thin as a blade; The Immortal Sword, your weapon of choice

cuts to the next scene: ashy rocks on the ashen beach.

I’m sure you’re somewhere in that roiling nightmare before me

where the moon has captured you beneath my shadow.

I’m sure he tore off your cape

and shattered your blade on the rocks.

I know

your body is tracing the water

and all of your hands are tracing the water

and the water’s tracing the wind

and the wind, the water; the rising blade.

With each pale flicker you’re defeating the moon.

The projector is casting its biggest star

who moves through this room a white frame

on a white wall.

My hero,

pallid, sickly, and silver,

can you find my shadow?