Staring Contest
you might see my sensibly-short layered white hair
but might not see my long blond kindergarten braids
set off by straight-across high-cut bangs
nor my sexy has-great-movement
college-years shag-cut that falls below the shoulders
you might see my all-way-stretch fleece leggings,
you might not see my adorable checkered
seersucker shorts-and-sleeveless-blouse outfit
exactly like best friend betty’s
nor my miniskirt plus purple maxicoat
plus suede lace-up fashion-boots ensemble
you might see my hands on a macbook pro keyboard,
tapping blog posts into place
but not see my filling in of tiny squares of graph paper
with caran d’ache colored pencils
in the company of my sisters beside lake lucerne
nor my writing letters from camp with a felt-tip blue flair pen
as pine needles drop on the cabin roof during siesta
you might see my feet in wide-toe-box walking shoes,
thousands of steps taken in the quiet of predawn,
you might not see my feet on roller skates,
skimming along sidewalks in the netherlands
nor my jumping so nimbly and fast it’s barely possible
to count the number of times a skipping-rope
passes beneath in 30 seconds,
earning a blue ribbon at 5th grade field day
but,
really,
how can i know what you see?
i don’t even know what i see.
i view myself early today
on a video recording
of a zoom class in which i participate
and think,
who is that?
—dotty seiter
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3 x 3″; watercolor and watercolor pencil on paper
#32 in a color swatch series
2025
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Notes about poem and art:
• “Staring Contest” began with a prompt, an invitation to explore. It is a playground in which I romped around with ideas and images that tagged me like playmates and yelped, “You’re it” as they raced away leaving me to respond!
• Exterior surface of shell, interior surface. What do you notice, what do I? What is visible, what is not? The Sea captures my visual attention with its striations, its encrusted edges, its pearlinesses, its colors, its textures, its mini naturescapes. It captures memories: as a youngster yanking mussels loose from their hold on granite outcroppings at the shore at Old Kelsey Point in Connecticut with my sisters, cracking the mussels open, tying string to them, dropping our lines down to hungry crabs, and then, again, years later, as a mom showing my kids how to do the same at West Beach in Massachusetts.
dottyseiter: now playing 
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