For today's prompt, write a snapshot poem. When I think of snapshot, I think of a photograph or painting still life. The poem would bring this particular moment to life. However, if you have another interpretation, I encourage you to follow your muse.
Wild Mustard. 1972
Obviously the eye is a camera
But at nine
looking out the car window of our VW bus
at a yellow hill near Oaxaca
I took my first conscious picture
became a camera
saved a still
I learned to do that
at that moment
frame it
mean it
need it
take it
keep it
you can't keep everything
you can't keep
the boy with the one toe
or the mosquitos and the fisherman's nets
or the cave and its rivulets
or the marshmellows sold individually at the shack
at the curve of the road
two pesos or the smell of piss around the zocallo benches
or the pink spotted balloon, beloved King
who lost air
and skidded on the ground, tragic
or the firework trees or the horses' wet backs
as we galloped over the horizon
in Morelia - three of four of us running for our lives
(another story altogether)
one with snapshots seared in
not taken
to take the conscious photograph
you decide what is important
what you will keep within you forever
not the slurred plea and the body bumped and knock
pounded on the door, door giving
not the wooden window opening
the car starting,
the gravel
her terror
don't take too many
but take a Mexican hill
overrun with wild mustard
brilliant
perfect
yellow
singing
forever
got it.
just like that.
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