Backwards Man in His Hotel Room, NYC, 1961
       

"A photograph," you once said, "is a secret
about a secret." So you've spectered yourself
just so—somewhere beyond the bedstead where
he stands, body in perfect profile to your camera's

eye. His nose and chin jut west, feet due east
behind him, trench-coat obscuring his silhouette's
sleight of hand. Two hangers, the Mommy Dearest
kind, dangle one atop the other against the closet

door. He looms, a slender Z, above the double
fringes of a folded rug. A paper window shade
occults the light. Or is it night? Who folded
the rug? Then pulled tight the shade? A naked

bulb hangs just beyond his gaze. One click
of your ghostly finger sets it all ablaze.

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Copyright © 2020 Cathy Smith Bowers All rights reserved
from Cave Wall
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission