A  cross-dissolve would be construed

as too sentimental

for a non-antiquarian such as you.

Which is to say, you would prefer

the portrait of the young aesthete

enjambed against the image

of the ailing patriarch

like Kubrick’s up-cranked ape

hurling his blanched bone

heavenward, cutting

to an indolent craft in space

marking the epochs in between

Discobolus and that box of dreams

(which still entrances us

in the dark).

That would be you.

Fast forward through

the interminable exposition,

past the creaking dialogue,

ominous diagesis

and welling strings

past the ridiculous biopic tropes

of master, hemlock, and weeping

acolytes. In short, you would say:

“Cut to the fucking point.”