1955

Googie's coffee shop

on Sunset Blvd.

James Dean in

parking lot

legs strapped around

a motorcycle like a scene

from The Wild One

just another poster boy

for posterity --- fifty years later

James Dean

mounted on my wall

with the same

all knowing grin

wondering

would Narcissus be Narcissus

if not for the myth or just

another boy courting his

shadow in an

abandoned lake. this photo

of a myth pretending to be

another myth now poses as

as November on my calendar--

if only I could reach across time---

tap him on the shoulder

& ask

what it's like to be captured like this

out of context is it

like dancing in a pool of standing water.

I might ask what he thinks

as the photographer adjusts

the lens

is he glad he wore

gloves are his pants too tight

is he hot in that Brando studded leather jacket

this contender

cigarette perched on

his parched lips looking like a child

at the circus

playing make-believe in a famous body

trying not to laugh or curse or

take the camera

too seriously

or himself

or that other fellow

who stares back at him

across time

Narcissus maybe or

Marlon Brando

while he straddles that bike thinking

someday someone somewhere will see him

and know even

myths have myths.

© 2004 - Jayne Lyn Stahl