Emma Sovich

A man flickers on a wall,
a white wall.

His face contorts three different ways,
exaggerated. This face

small in the frame, shoulders stiff
hands still

restlessly clutching each other.
He stands in a room

as spare as this room.
his eyebrows mostly plucked move

up, then tuck into his nose, then soften
flat, as his expressions

cycle, his three faces. Moving fast,
his mouth flattens

as a brow flattens, grimaces, teeth
flashing, freed,

nose stops twitching, eyes water.
When all are flatter,

flattest, the video clicks off, the white
room brightens,

and the men and woman and children turn
to the locked door,

shake it. Shake it. They turn back to the man,
his implied voice, flat

pupils, moving lips, flickering
wall-side, lip

through cycle: libro corpora mota.
As if movement

could loose them into an alternate
darkening,

where their own faces turn to cup light,
refract, multiply.

As if words that live in the mouth
can weigh more

than those words that restlessly climb
to eardrums.