8 Millimeter

Other people know my body better
Than I do...
They watch me
A camera ever recording
And they can see
The tilts of my head
And the slouch of my back
And the way my lips turn up slowly when I see them enter a room.

They know the way my body rises
Up, forward
The way my breasts drape
The way my sweater encases my backside
How my ears look when I am crying
The back of my head
Sitting behind me in a city bus
Or behind me in the backseat of the car
The way I have memorized the color of my mother's hair before she dyed it
I don't even know if she remembers
The hairdresser is ever getting it wrong

And I know the way my brother holds a pencil
And the way my father's finger trembles in the place he cut the tip off in the snowblower
And how the back of her high rise jeans look when she is cooking dinner
And I know how much she hates cooking

I am their camera
Searching for reasons
And they are my camera
And I cannot see the tape playing
I can only see their faces in response to the film.