By B.A. Van Sise
I’ll never forget it- passing two kids
kissing on an old stone wall,
my uncle told me they have
an obligation to love and
we to not look. Sorry, uncle,
today I not only looked but took
a picture- no, made- nothing
stolen, nothing gained but
instead, wanting to tell the story,
or perhaps remember one, I paused
to pull from time this one moment
of young lust that will never die
but will not last: a car just
past the corner whose driver
was the salt on another’s tongue. Still,
lifting my camera, I hold
that lesson in mind, and
am mindful enough to be ashamed:
and so, to make sure no
one would see,
I stopped, right there,
and got down, on my knees.
About the Author:
B.A. Van Sise is an author and photographic artist with three monographs: the visual poetry anthology Children of Grass with Mary-Louise Parker, Invited to Life with Mayim Bialik, and On the National Language with DeLanna Studi. He is a two-time winner of the Independent Publisher Book Awards gold medal, a two-time Prix de la Photographie Paris winner, an Anthem Award winner, a finalist for the Rattle and Kenyon Poetry Prizes, and a winner of the INDIES Book of the Year and Lascaux Prize for Nonfiction.