Matthew Kelsey
Ars Poetica
In my father’s final days
he says he gets lost
in thinking periods,
that he can share them
whenever I need
a good lecture. He
cackles as he says this,
says he’s been busy
reflecting on background
lighting made for sets.
He considers the photos
taken when he could see,
when he showed
the plan for Amway
ad nauseum, how their shots
were always produced
with expert lighting,
the people running
back and forth behind him.
That’s not me, he says
he’d think to himself.
That’s not me at all.
He wants me to think
about light, too,
how it changes
a thing, changes it so
we’re never actually looking
at the object itself.
I recall the day I took him
to the opthalmologist
after his ocular embolism.
The doctor projected
images of his scattershot
eyelight on a screen.
Disturbed by the light
of the room and all
the dilating silence,
I said his eyes
appeared to be milky
Hubble shots of the moon.
I thought he’d want
to know, thought
he could still find himself
beautiful. I’m always
only more or less myself,
myself with shadows,
he says to me now,
and suggests I consider
all people magicians, their
sense of sight a charm.
He pauses to let it
sink in. He has me
thinking of Plato,
and Nicéphore Niépce,
though he’s never
really learned of either
one, and the distance
between us deepens.
So—what can you
do? he finally issues,
hoping I’m still there,
confident I am, sure
he’s following himself
at the very least. What
can you do for people
that makes them think
they’re seeing something,
even if they’re not? I haven’t
said a word. He laughs
a little, reminds me
to call anytime I need
some time to reflect.
Says he needs to return
to dinner, must go,
but he really hopes
I consider whatever
magic I know.
Matthew Kelsey reads “Ars Poetica”
Matthew Kelsey is from Glens Falls, New York, and currently lives in Chicago. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Copper Nickel, Colorado Review, and elsewhere. He has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, a teaching fellowship from the Kenyon Review Young Writers Program, and an Idyllwild Arts Fellowship.