SAY CHEESE

You force a smile until

you think you look the way

you think you look.

The man

behind the camera wants

a bigger smile, and you comply

as to a dentist’s, “Open wider.”

For smiles to qualify as smiles,

the eyes and lips must rhyme,

but now your eyes resign

from the equation.

Plain vanity

sustains the shot, and authenticity

be damned.

You hold the pose.

Since posing is what posing

does, you learn that all

that posing does is mold you

in a pose the poser wants.

For just that long, you’re who

you’re not.

When you unpose

and are yourself again,

you see what made the Iroquois

believe that being photographed

permitted the photographer to steal

your soul.

The Iroquois were right.

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