Greg Santos presents Todd Swift (II)

Todd Swift often writes persona poems, for example, as Emperor Hirohito or as a girl who has frozen to death, and in this case, as a wedding photographer.  This poem spoke to me as a representation of the lonely act of writing poetry.  Swift once said that he sometimes sees “poetry in terms of cinema.”  This poem is like film in motion.  Knowing about his background as a screenwriter, I can’t help but notice the cinematic qualities of this piece.  I believe the images at the end are what make the poem, with its leaps and cuts into seemingly disconnected images that build on the original image of the lonely photographer.

-- Greg Santos

The Wedding Photographer

It is a private, lonely thing
To do, gathering new pictures
Of delight. I take photographs

That build their album, the looking
Backwards, developing beauty:
Their standing, happy, just married

After the light has altered them.
No one sees me on my own bed
Later, rehearsing a vision

In which a white dress lifts then falls
With the sequencing of seasons,
Just and ordered in what happens

To bodies that love, are desired,
As fire, that takes a forest down
As dogs will a stag, cannot know

The king inlaid, uncovering
Vows future-arrowed, as cut skin
Shows the purple all wear within.

-- Todd Swift

Editor's note:  Greg Santos was born and raised in Montreal, Canada.  He lives in New Haven, CT.  You can follow Moondoggy's Pad, his blog about poetry, literature, and pop culture, here.