White paste shellacs the cracks. Cupid’s dark bow
shoots voiceless arrows through the intertitles.
The studio lights make mocking cataracts
of blue eyes and turn golden hair to plastic,
but blacks and browns blush into fullest bloom—
abysses that not even Caravaggio
could hope to sound the depths of with his brush.
Quit harlequinning—this is film, not theatre!
There are no cheap seats, no stage whispers here.
The camera catches every eyebrow’s twitch,
and once ensnared you’ll never wrestle free.
Here flesh is obsolete. Here you are light.