I’ve been framed flat,
run over by fate’s big black Buick,
9 by 12'ved behind glass
so thick I can’t breathe.

Frozen in a grimace of a grin,
with a face the camera never loved,
there’s a stranger at four a.m.
looking back from the bathroom mirror.

The older we get, the more invisible
we become, even people we love forget
the need to pay attention to us, don’t see
past the snap-shots they keep in mind.

Once upon a time I was twenty-five
and beautiful but I didn’t have sense
to take care of myself, to floss,
to put out bridge fire’s, shut my big mouth.

Now, I’m set apart from you, still
in the picture, though our storyline’s dropped
we’ve blended into the background- neutral
shades in Kodachrome, process out of date.

When I heard you were getting married,
it was as if I misplaced a box of photographs,
paper images of a trip to Seneca Rocks,
a waterfall there as long as I remember.