Looking at pictures is for one reason only,

To catch someone moving, or some change.

A man walks into the design and spoils it.

The general laughs. Sun goes behind clouds.

The nude girl stands up, and another reason

For looking at pictures is to touch her.

Or to cross the painted room and pick up

The painted brass bowl from the real table.

To go into the picture, and be its size.

In photographs of your own earlier life

Everyone starts talking again, or moves off,

You and your brother back to the bicycle

Upside down on the back walk, and finish

Fixing the coaster-brake, squatting seriously

Down, thirty-five years ago. But I got up

And came back, nearer and coming nearer.

I said, What will become of me after this?

Not those words, not so much saying we,

What have we by this time, or you to me?

As a boy's look, a breath before he asks.

The truth about pictures is that people

In pictures do not hear what you answer.

I told him, I began telling. I knew.

He almost heard. And went back My brother

And he worked on the brake till suppertime.