Surveillance

So many cameras
ready for holdups,
those who shoplift,
and the stoplight runner;
yet for all the tape
that rolls without ceasing,
where's the evidence,
the footage that catches
one in the act,
bareassed, redhanded,
of breaking down love,
as flora does sunlight,
into something unseen
that still can sustain?

Stephen Cushman is the author of two volumes of poetry, Blue Pajamas (LSU, 1998) and Cussing Lesson (LSU, 2002), as well as two books of criticism and Bloody Promenade: Reflections on a Civil War Battle (Virginia, 1999). He teaches at the University of Virginia.

 
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