Reaching Through Tin

By -
Your image before me
has traveled through time
intact, yet your eyes see me
here, in my now, your future
yet to be.

You are speaking to me
with a stare telescoping
beyond eons, and I hear you,
your thoughts, hopes, ideals,
genius and sorrow fully blown.

Reach out your hand, reach
through the film that separates
us, touch your barrier to 
dissipate my radius,
and our frontier will be
inhabited and haunted
all at once.

 by Charlotte Ozment



















A note on the image: This is the oldest known intentional photographic self-portrait of a person (Robert Cornelius, 1839) and the photograph that inspired this poem.

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