Your wish. Plath said it: I eat men like air.
* * * * *
That photo: my first sight of it, so not
Quite up to taking all that stuff on board
As if I’d been the guy who took the shot
And there you were, alchemically restored.
Then it would mark some still-familiar spot
Of memory that, with luck, might yet afford
Us both – joint players in that well-made plot –
A leading role. But as it is I’m floored,
Just hunting back for any handy slot
To place it with the other fragments shored
Against the sense of timelines gone to pot
With that one raunchy snap. If someone scored
Back then it wasn’t me; if you looked hot,
Or up for it, my share of the reward
Was to have her (you) teach me how I’d got
To live with the idea that some new hoard
Of snapshots might turn up and bring to view
Time-slices of you framed for me by way
Of others’ fantasies.
* * * * *
Truth is, what threw
Me most was how your image seemed to say
Much the same things to me: ‘be careful, you,
My voyeur-lover; there’s a price to pay
For ogling this, your extra-special coup
De foudre, though you’ve come late in the day
To gawp at it. No doubt there’ve been a few
Who gawped, and likely felt the thing convey
Such scary messages, yet still came through
Each time to all appearances OK
And keen for more. Still, best not live to rue
Your back-projected thoughts of me or play
The knowing analyst who takes his cue
From just those details that, he thinks, betray
My one desire: to offer you the clue
By whose unravelling you might allay
Your doubts and fears. No chance: you’ll join the crew
Of carved-up suitors, end as easy prey
For curly-haired Medusa, or just do
What that lot did – the guys who figured they
Had me all figured – and so misconstrue
The signs that your desires are led astray
At my least whim. Woe to the ogler who
Doubts this or thinks of my déshabillé
In that old snap as just a trick to woo
The male gaze with my pleasing disarray
And tousled curls, as if to prove this shrew
Well tamed. It’s not his wishes I’ll obey,
Nor yours, nor anybody’s in the queue
Of my ex-fanciers who find they may
Have bitten off far more than they can chew
By taking that old beach-scene to display
Past intimacy. What they get in lieu
Of me’s an image that begins to fray
Around the edges once the déjà vu
Effect takes hold and memory’s dossier
D’érotiques comes up with nothing new
To tweak their nerve. So, if you hit the hay
With me and have no secret wish to screw
Some 2-D revenant from temps passé,
Then let this living flesh of mine subdue
Your scopic drive and end her overstay.’
For the Tempus-Fugitives Page 20
