miss aligned
I scroll through a new photographer friend’s images of a foggy night in Almonte, the town in which we both live.
They feature her husband as a model. They are creatively lit, visually interesting and provocative. As I view them one after the other, I hit the Facebook like button: like, like, like, love… and then OMG and WTF!
Something is terribly wrong. One of the images is — I can barely stand to type the word — crooked. Off kilter. Misaligned. Not straight. Tilted. Slanted. ASKEW!
Oh dear. What to do?
Give her some constructive feedback, I say to myself. She’s a grown woman. A professional. She is obviously loaded with talent. So…
“You must straighten this LOL,” I comment below the pic. I add the ‘LOL’ as an afterthought to be nice because, you know, we have never met and I don’t want to anger her but clearly there is a BIG problem here. She can’t leave this image out there in the universe when anyone in their right mind will see it should be rotated one degree clockwise.
I don’t want to offend her. But this is an issue.
Sadly, a heated discussion ensues.
“What do you mean CROOKED!?” She types furiously. I know it’s furiously because the little messenger dots indicating that she’s responding are undulating at breakneck speed. For a moment I think they might fly across my screen and project themselves out of my computer and into my living room like teeny grenades. Uh oh.
“Well, I just thought you might want to consider…” I begin to tap out. But now her dots are just a blur on the left of the message thread. Too late. Sigh.
Some people get it. Others not so much.
This poem is about that.
miss aligned
by susan
© 2022
Listen here:
Read here:
miss aligned
everything’s tilted
it’s all on a slant
levelling efforts
only prove that i can’t
make the world as I’d like it
all perfect and square
and not wanting to scream
or tear out my hair
can’t you see it’s askew?
on a dizzying angle?
that causes perspective
to be tortured and tangled?
your eyes must be crooked
or your brain isn’t right
are you impaired in some way?
or just not very bright?
the side that is up
should really be down
two degrees of rotation
will add jewels to the crown
make it straight. do it now!
don’t waste any more time
to leave it alone
is nothing short of a crime
© 2022 Susan Macaulay. I invite you to share my poetry and posts widely, but please do not reprint, reblog or copy and paste them in their entirety without my permission. Thank you.
note to self: do not argue with people whose purpose is to argue
