When all is virtual all can be changed,
even the face of my past.
Half smile, deep creases, wrinkles, even pimples,
I'm a prestidigitator of pixels.
Slider, pointer, and optical mouse are my magic wands.
I can manipulate every image of love and hate.
In reality she's far from me but I can retouch her face on screen.
Slide the pointer on the focus filter bar to the right
and her half-smile sharpens to a caustic hard edge.
It's how I see her today. Or I can recant and pull back
and her skin blurs to silky smoothness,
as it appeared when I first beheld her.
I can saturate her color back to that rainbow glory I saw
when we first said hello. Or I can withdraw to the present,
to the grayness of our parting.
Tease her face- I can do that-
tease her out of the background crowd. Or I can slide the contrast
back to bland two dimensions, her face flat among the others.
Lurch to the right on the brightness bar and behold,
her tortured grin fades into blown-out whiteness.
Or I can retreat into darkness,
darken her cheeks, lips, and dead brown eyes.
Dead brown eyes.
Yet I can also lasso a speck of light and clone it
so cheery catchlights gleam from those dull eyes.
I can even fashion her forced half smile into a warm full one,
by gently nudging the stream of zeros and ones
deep within the heart of the computer.
Abracadabra, hocus pocus, presto chango, Shazam
for every reality, even her face,
when all is virtual all can be changed
 2008 - Richard Fein