Pictures

Upon the air there was a face I knew
from coarse-grained stills, a woman that would make
old feelings stir - uncertain admiration,
some vague doubts: apparently the world
could value her sweet face enough to think
she merited publicity. But why
should beauty lead to adulation? How
could mere externals make somebody be
a star? Unbidden, stealthily she came
back into place: despite it all, she still
strikes the same chord. But older now, I know
that all along her strange attraction's lain
not in her figure, in her breasts or legs,
but in her wistfulness - a certain look
I can't define, something about her eyes,
the angle of her head and then that slow,
sad smile. Will any future audience
feel in this way about the girls I see
on billboards, busses and the evil eye
in all their artifice - synthetic stars
that tough their way across? I can't conceive
that they will ever stir the same response,
however sharply printed, glossy, slick
without those bad old prints to do the trick.