IN MOTION THE REST (PLATE 541) by Laurie Clements Lambeth


 
          Eadweard Muybridge, Animal Locomotion 1887
 

Moments today I become the nude
with cerebro-spinal sclerosis, photo-
graphed and filed amid athletes, horses,
 
wild beasts—but distinguished under the heading
“Abnormal Movements” by Muybridge himself,
in the name of science. Barely perceptible,
 
a haze of lag tugs softly the left foot’s arch—
stay awhile—its soft brush of delay beckoning
underfoot, a wispy finger to strain
 
against. Those multiple shots of our steps,
hers and mine, the not quite fitting, bare before
the grid. You can see if you look carefully:
 
I have grown monochromatic there
where stopped motion pulls like a leather strap,
each step a trip-wire firing the shutters.
 
 
 
Laurie Clements Lambeth is the author of Veil and Burn, selected by Maxine Kumin for the National Poetry Series. Her work has appeared in Crazyhorse, The Paris Review, Indiana Review, and elsewhere. One of her poems was recently selected as the winner of Bellevue Literary Review’s poetry prize.