The Photo Booth (Poem in Four Frames)

I spin the stool clockwise 
in this miniature curtained theater
to align my eyes with arrows
as sharp as my gaze.  

The soft clink of quarters
begins a melodrama in four acts
a well-rehearsed
choreographed sequence.  

This camera is an unforgiving audience.
Its mechanical stare
unmoved by my performance 
unconvinced by these gestures.  

Absent a photographer,
these photographs
expose four iterations of me
but not quite myself.

A photograph
is a back-handed kiss

I remember photographs as torn pieces of paper