SHE LOOKS FORWARD

looks straight at me
through the camera lens
it's not a pose
she has done this before
while he looks the other way
always upwards in search
of a sky that is never there
she prefers the present to the future
ever since pictures became digital
and transcended her concrete box
of a basement room where her
new red dress is still unfinished
and the retro silver hat is too big
to be fashionable
she wants to know when it will be safe
to go outside – if there will be a signal
as hope still exists inside the frown –
even he cannot tell who measures everything
that comes his way
while a cornucopia of thoughts
are transferred between them
between the crevasses and cracks
that contain them
towards a future present
that's so hard to contemplate
or even bother about