< robin's shadow >

[rayheinrich]

The picture is tied to the poem. At first, I was left wondering whether or not the picture was a stock picture, and if not, whether the person in the picture was a stranger or not -- somehow, I was bothered by the character of her person, I'm a little too austere or antiquated, but then I started focusing, closely relating the words to the image, or rather the meanings behind the words, the thoughts and feelings ---- and I got bugged by "a corner of mouth", it felt redundant (my usual fixation is hair), and also by the superfluous "yours" (I don't think I've whispered such to an other). But the sting still throbbed, and I started unpeeling the picture, and realized that something felt more artificial than usual: it had a filter, especially, it seemed, one of those un-personalized smartphone ones, such that the sense of falsehood started bleeding out of the picture, and into the poem, the feelings, the sting. Now, my personal treatment of the piece is one of disappointment, perhaps mirroring my usual disappointment regarding the contrast between reality and fantasy -- but the alienation did provide a sense of objectivity, enough to remove the aforementioned enough to remove the aforementioned issues, the redundancy gives the poem movement, and the seemingly superfluous "yours" is the kiss ---- such that overall, the picture is tied to the poem, but now in the same way light is tied to darkness, meaning is tied to void, and the strange blend of cause and effect, of descriptor and described, and of word and image, is the final, beautiful focus. Lovely work ------ or perhaps I am in an especially loving mood.

You remain as inscrutable as ever, but I quite appreciate your comments.

Not a huge fan of the pic (not that she's unworthy of such attention), but there's no visual of the side smile described and I find that unsatisfying.

I agree with Dale that it's a stronger poem without the last two words, although RiverNotch's justification of them is poetry.

I took out the last two words for Dale.

I changed the image to a dragon's shadow which has the side smile you were looking for.
(I thought changing the image to a robin's shadow was way too literal for a poem).