Condition (Prologue – to Portraits – Negatives)

by Elizabeth Guthrie

For the apparent
she (ep) (h) lies free (ly)

Refrain
Seek (k) (h) e (y) information

For the apparent
she (a) (th) rows
of pinholes
and adjoining shadows,
shadows,
an inversion from
the averted eye
too singularly focused,
some negatives
called back from
their original forms
by lucid sense
Seek (k) (h) e (y) information
For she (’) d (e) mark (et) (cate)
as place,
the ritual of where
she has been framed and now where
things meet and sail
by points of perspective
to trim wings,
sheets of agreement,

for the whole bellow,
for the mast
as giving direction,
until it’s lost
and they’re all found
holding something,
being something, sensing
that we perceive
by their (frame) work (ings)
where
we are, where
they are, what
is the (re) (ir)
pointedly roundabout
within frames
real texture
of form and taking shape, that
she comes holding what she came with
in frames
to answer the question
who is at the head? how are the t(i)e(a)(e)rs arranged?
Through the allegorical works of strata
she answers, concomitance
and then he
and it is then together that they are a meeting, a satori
a synthesis, a smell, setir,
a memory,
a recollection of the present,
a symbol, a sign of Kairos,
a gathering periphery, forming the realization
in which we are all the one in charge