Our Nature

The very flatness of portraits
makes for nostalgia
in the connoisseur.
 
Here’s the latest
little lip of wave
to flatten
and spread thin.
 
Let’s say
it shows our recklessness,
 
our fast gun,
 
our self-consciousness
which was really
 
our infatuation
with our own fame,
 
our escapes,
 
the easy way
we’d blend in
 
with the peasantry,
 
our loyalty
to our old gang
 
from among whom
it was our nature
 
to be singled out