Go to the movies you selfish dreamer
my first boyfriend would tell me
and I felt bad           
                     and beautiful.

In my 20s, I found Goddard,
Truth comes, 24 frames per second;
cinema saved his life,
                     bolstered mine
with poetry and a love of the unexpected.

                     What do you call it
when you phone a friend
from the Rez, say you’re not gonna
make the NY film festival, hang up,
go camping in Utah, end up escaping the smoke
from a fire a world away,
                     only to find yourself
                     in Telluride, Colorado -
                     at the movies?

I see Swingers, buy an Alexis Smith post card,
nearly trip over Andy Stein in a tourist shop,
and photograph Oliver Assayas,
                     whom I mistake
for a grown Jean Pierre-Leaud.

I practice in French what I would say to him,
how he changed my life with 400 Blows,
                     but I have the wrong man.
Years later, when Assayas
makes an autobiographical film,
who does he cast to play himself?
                     Jean-Pierre Leaud!

In the cinema,
                     there are no mistakes,
                     just destiny.