I am everywhere you wish to see,
rotored voyeur, buzzing my insect
self over roofs and between trees
so that you can know the image
of life in progress somewhere
you cannot or should not be.
Many-eyed, like spider or fly,
I record the motions of persons
in places, with things large
and small in their hands or arms.
I live to flutter and fly, I live
to view and even spy, I await
commands and move at a finger’s
touch to this or that street—see
the lawn, the pool, the yard, the car—
mock-epic catalog of a consuming
life, of a collecting ritual private,
now public if I, if you will make
it so. Seeing is believing, so they
say, and what then will you believe?
Believe the green lawn fades brown
after high-summer heat, that people
seek both sun and shade as they will,
that objects collect as flotsam on
the shores of their lives till imagined
boats can no longer make purchase
on beaches blocked by cluttered
tranquility. My brethren live over
construction sites, over combat zones,
but I live the simple life of inquiry
into the quiet of quotidian lives,
so believe what you will of objects
filling spaces, of spaces opening in
lives, in this great toy-space of
fancy, in no belief but in things.
–
Vincent Casaregola teaches literature, film, and writing at Saint Louis University. He has published work in a number of journals. He has recently completed a book-length manuscript of poetry dealing with issues of medicine, illness, and loss (Vital Signs) that has been accepted by Finishing Line Press.
