Polaroid Smile

This frame is for the photograph
I took four years ago, standing
on my picnic table on a May evening

before Japan moved eight feet to the left,
moments before Katrina flooded New Orleans with demons,
I didn't know yet that tsunamis were real,
that children could receive radiation poisoning
from the bottles that their mothers anxiously fed them
while rocking on the curb and looking at the pile of wood
their lives had suddenly become,

at a time when the idea of the earth changing position,
the number of planets in the solar system become less and more,
or days permanently becoming slightly shorter--
at a time when all of these thoughts were pages in a book
I borrowed from the library,

when I used to be able to read books simply because
and simply because their titles gave me a thrill
before vices became addictions, before addictions were real
and not romantic stories from beat poets and idolized musicians

a time when all I had to do to make myself happy
was put on a sun dress, barefeet full of splinters
climb on top of the picnic table,
lift my camera as high as I could reach

and take one picture.
The picture of my world, through the branches of trees
the sunset on an evening of my life, moments before
I realized that every fucked up fantasy that's ever been constructed
comes from one very realistic fucked up moment
in this strangely surrealistic world.