Published January 14, 2012
I guess I look alright
in your light,
at the left-hand corner
of an HDR snapshot
from that semester,
with my high-socked legs
tangled in a mess
extending down our backs
to your hands
where you held your notebook
gently.
I watched you,
you,
play with that expansive
lined canvas,
as if skill was some thing
you could whip
around and sling
at will---
talent
wasn’t really talent at all,
but some far-fetched product
of perfection
that I had been blessed with,
by proxy.
the photo wrinkles now---
cracking and flaring faintly
across our faces
like some sun-baked dish
left out too long.
I see gold in the corners
of those eyes,
that danced along their winking pages
watching stories mature to ripeness
and shrink back again
to nothing.
the college-ruled lines of your book
have yellowed as well.
it could be the light,
faint here
now that noon has passed
and I sit remembering…
but these old polaroids
you insisted on,
heavy with plastic,
seem to decay
so quickly.
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141,293 Literary Works • 674,334 Reviews
The line
breaks, they are so
abrupt it is
jarring to read
them.
Especially in the first stanza, though the second stanza suffers this, to a lesser extent. The line breaks feel more like an attempt to be artsy and poetic rather than an essential part of the poem, and it is really, really distracting.
Also, the socks in the first stanza are extending down both their backs? That doesn't really make sense as an image. Unless we're talking a certain type of image, but the rest of the poem doesn't support that interpretation.
The third stanza, however, is rather lovely, and the fourth stanza stays lovely as well. You've got some good, consistent images here, and while you did have images in the first and second stanzas, the effects of those images was interrupted by the intrusive line breaks.
I would seriously recommend condensing the first and second stanzas to fewer lines, perhaps even cutting them down into one stanza. There really isn't much purpose for the second stanza to be present, and it is more filler than anything, filler which could be cut out to make a tighter, more cohesive poem overall.
In short: play around with your line breaks so that they're not so jarringly abrupt and consider excising the second stanza. You have good images here, but right now, they're hidden by the first two stanzas and their flaws.