Second Glance – Elizabeth Brunowski, PhD
The glowering window eyes of the white barn
With the red roof overlook
The deep green John Deere tractor
With its huge black wheels
With yellow insets and a stern bag-faced dummy
Seated at the controls. Walking
Alongside the barn is the mother
With her pudgy son in an orange shirt
Passing the tractor and the flowers on its left.
The challenge in the second photograph
Of the same scene is to discover twelve differences
Between that one and the first. Your eyes
May deceive you. It is a test,
It is a game, like the ones you played
In activity books as a child
Having rehearsed the practice daily
As you arrived for breakfast
And sleuthed out the sameness
And differences, the pinks
Of the outfits your sister
Wore to high school, the absence
One morning of your father, the presence
Or absence of slices of peaches.
Like the farm scene,
The discrepancies
Were without explanation. Here
In the second photo the glaring
Changes announce themselves boldly.
The tractor proclaims Deere John,
A window’s eye is smudged into a cloud, three
Shadows instead of four, but life-
Tilting details are harder
To pick out: the woman’s arm is no longer
Around her son, the tractor wheel
Is without a tread, the flowers are missing,
Like the lost peaches in your cereal
Bowl, and your sister’s customary
Smile. Now the window shade is pulled down
So you cannot see the wisteria overtaking
The trellis outside. Your mother standing
As usual at the stove is wordless.
No one arrives to tour you through the kitchen
Or the farm. Go whistle your questions. You are left
With your circling mind to make what matches
You ever can, to locate a path and place
To reclaim those particulars
Of your original scene, the one you seek
To remember the best, the one
You can call your first glance.
Elizabeth Brunoski is a poet, psychologist, and psychoanalyst.
Her poetry has been published widely in journals. Her latest poetry collection is
The Side Door of the Dream (International Psychoanalytic Books, 2118). She has also published psychoanalytic articles on various subjects. She lives and is in private practice in Manhattan.