
As the water
softened the earth
in the garden,
she peered out
from under her sunhat
to gauge
if that dark thing
coiled by the fence
was a snake,
and if so, by god,
could it be smiling?
#47 from Untitled Film Poems
Image by Cindy Sherman

As the water
softened the earth
in the garden,
she peered out
from under her sunhat
to gauge
if that dark thing
coiled by the fence
was a snake,
and if so, by god,
could it be smiling?
#47 from Untitled Film Poems
Image by Cindy Sherman




She believed
there was a place for her,
a venerated quarry,
or wedge of corner,
somewhere
that wouldn’t be
overlooked
by the gossamer sentience
of light falling.
#42 from Untitled Film Poems
Image by Cindy Sherman

Cased
in lucid glare
she modeled herself
as a pin-up
sacrifice
to the ribbed shadows
that dyed
her silence.
#41 from Untitled Film Poems
Image by Cindy Sherman

She turned, obliquely,
to reframe her perspective—
Maybe one last chance?
#40 from Untitled Film Poems
Image by Cindy Sherman


As if in a dream,
or mottled gloam,
she found herself bailing
on the small needy child
with grotesquely long
tapered fingers–
she found herself leaving home
to an unmarked plot
and its numberless ghosts.
#38 from Untitled Film Poems
Image by Cindy Sherman