Anonymous crit:
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No Movies of Me
Think of the movie stars that were --
their heydays brimming with hormones,
then their relentless public ageing:
a bloated Brando, a withered Bacall,
a Groucho shifting his dentures in a shriveled mouth,
a crumbling, leathered Moore,
a doddery Hope, no hope left,
gazing into the distance, or the past.
How lucky there are no movies of me
on my Road to Anywhere, only stills:
no home Super-8 replay of someone past,
fresh-featured, lithe and limber, playing the fool
forever in a ski-sweater of Norwegian style,
splashing water at the camera lens,
or taking a loving glance for granted.
Or maybe just one. Somewhere in a tin trunk
stashed in the lumber-room of a childhood friend
now gray or gone, there may survive a short trick sequence:
thirty grainy seconds of me at ten or eleven
climbing out of the same cardboard box
again and again, before fading out.
This poem is superb. I find no faults. Masterly.
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