Our “I”s. They are multiple. We shuffle them often as we like. They can tag us. We can untag ourselves. We’ve got our to-be-looked-at-ness oh we have got it. We peer and cross. Go lazy. We’re all girly. We’re pretty selfie. We write our poems. We write our manifestos. While sitting in the photo booth. While skipping down the street. We think: if only my camera could see me now. There is a tranquil lyric but we recollect emotion with the speed of the feed. We pose to show the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. There are no more countrysides. There are no more churchyards. We smudge our vistas. We flip the cam around. What is burning in our little hearts? Hashtags of interiority licking like flames. We had been reflective. We have been reflected.
Copyright © 2018 by Becca Klaver. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 15, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.