The man in my
picture is dead.

This is what remains,
pornographic bookmarks,
in the folds of my brain.

I thought I had
forgotten his face,
when I had simply
forgotten my place.

All these pictures,
boots and laces.
All these things captured,
boys in their places.

All these throats,
compressed under a tread,
All those bellies,
a rope’s knot imprinted red.

The camera never forgot
and it never lied.
It only stopped speaking
after he died.