—Mississippi, 1940
So many of them
faceless beneath the brims
of their hats: so many
men and women, and always
it seems, children too,
drawn to the spectacle—
some finding the camera,
lifting their faces to history.
Here: two men stunned
into record, a boy squinting,
one man smiling as if
to leave his mark on the day.
From the bird’s-eye view
you can see the delicate part
in a girl’s hair, the dapple
of shadow on concrete—
leaves of the tree from which
the photographer must be
shooting. I can’t stop finding
the small wounds limned
into focus: a tiny dog
in a boy’s arms, one leg
dangled—a hook angling
toward the machine;
another boy cradling
a stack of books, his head
cropped by the frame;
a woman resting her hand
on the chair’s arm; and how
even the sun, bright
as the flash that whitens
their faces, polishes
the darker ones like stone.