What the Camera Says to the Voice

Going public becomes you.
You're only public when going
into a mic and coming out loud.
Even loud, even recorded,
you're over as soon as you're heard.
No difference between you
and the memory of you.
What a difference between
light's quick, clean lopping off
dark and your collide, ricochet
and drown amidst any crass fracas
of sound. Just listen to yourself:
You don't sound like yourself.
Sure you're not dubbed?
Even isolated from ambient noise
in the best anechoic chamber,
you wear a low-fi fuzz,
the audio version of pale gauze
falling out of the mouth
of the medium in hoaxed ghost photos
(I made the afterlife appear
convincing). You're the ghost
that can't materialize unless it's cold
and then it doesn't matter
what you say, what you say is
clouded — all obscure, hoary gloom.
Easily carried away by wind,
you die out. You're difficult
to remember when I focus
on the body you left behind.
I don't need you to tell me
I make the world immortal
and shut up. It doesn't matter
what you say, I can see through you
and I can prove to the world
there's nothing there.

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Copyright © 2011 Suzanne Wise All rights reserved
from Green Mountains Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission