You pressed thin fingers against jaws
and hats and hair and houses,
until real faces grim as Bible dogs
appeared in your lens.
Mouths that poked out,
rubbery tongues swollen with grief.

I was twelve when I saw them
at the Museum of Modern Art.
Nine foot high transvestites
pixelated in black and white,
the languid, sodden bodies
of carnival families you loved,
you loved, yes, you loved them,
each bump and twist and pocked pouch
of flesh.

You've been gone twenty years,
asleep in your red bath,
a negative about to turn.
Now, a new book —
the unbearable beauty of those children
who could never hide,
who were exactly what they seem,
and there you are Diane
simple and clean
as salt.