The sun comes up, the players resume
Obedience, duty, never a sob or shriek;
Better than barking dogs or parrots that speak
Are we ourselves the elephants in the room.
It’s not an ignoring of center or perimeter,
Nor pet and prisoner as simpletons interpret
How she escaped, what he permitted her —
Centrifugal, centripetal, imposing of a circuit.
But traveling out from this opening shot
Panoramic and close-up, their chronic nexus
Deep and suffused, the cuts direct us
Beyond sense to bewilderment infectious
At what is irremediable and what is not.
Several words in this poem have double meanings as terms in movie photography and medicine. For example:
- Treatment – 1) A film treatment, a pre-screenplay synopsis of a planned movie; and 2) A medical procedure to cure an ailment.
- Shot – 1) A distinct section of movie footage; and 2) A medical injection.
- Cut – 1) A sudden change of photographic object; and 2) An incision in the body.
The elephant in the room – An idiom meaning something that is obvious to everyone but unmentioned.