Together
decades ago we held hands
and sat hip-to-hip
in the sun and now
we take opposite sides of the table
and look down at our manuscripts
I get itchy before a shoot —
the word itself is anxiety-provoking —
photographing families,
the responsibility of capturing them
at this moment in time —
a tangible memory they’ll turn to
in joy and in sorrow —
weighs heavily on my mind.
To calm my nerves, I go through
my kit: two camera bodies, lenses,
a dust blaster, memory cards,
flash trigger, two lights
and a bounce, all in a case
with wheels I pull behind me,
luggage-style, as if I were traveling
to someplace exotic,
the Mediterranean or Bali
and not, as it turns out, a postage stamp
of a backyard that reeks of dog shit
in a bad neighborhood,
with no shade from the overwhelming sun,
a father who hasn’t shaved and can’t believe
he’s giving up part of his Saturday for this,
a mother who’s so visibly over
their two small children behaving
like tyrants, her pockets emptied
of gummies and Goldfish,
that she can only muster a sarcastic grin
when I say, in my cheeriest lilt
the incantation to make it all better:
Okay, everyone … now smile.
She picks up the beige handle, weighty solid,
a slight bend at each end, the cord stretching
from one end to its squarish base
Holding one end to her right ear the other the cord attached end
resting near her mouth She listens,
hears the sound of hope, the tone of possibility
She extends her left index finger and
hooks it into the dial cutout over the 5
turning the dial until it stops,
removing her finger as she watches
the dial slide back
Six more times the ritual is repeated
and then
she waits
She hears it
bzz, bzz, bzz
the sound of hopes dashed,
the end of possibility
Her left index finger pushes down the peg in the handle cradle
and then releases it
hears the sound of hope,
extends her left index finger, hooks it into the dial cutout
I looked for you all this December day
Sun turned to rain then to snow
This brief winter day turned to dark
I thought of you all this day
Been grateful for you, for us
For our simple life, our health
Thankful for your patience
Your capacity for love, caring, ritual
Thankful for your memory of us
Thankful even for the torn ragged episodes
The sad, the shameful, the … but wait;
There you are
In your lit window upstairs
I beckoned: “Come out, come out.”
You shook your head and killed the light.
Augment
Auto transfer
Autonomous machines
Artificial intelligence
Anxious
They say that in the quietest room in the world
Once you stay long enough
You begin to hear the rush of blood
Through your head
The beat of your heart
In your temples
The creaking of bones
It would drive me mad
I wonder if it’s anything like the silence
At four in the morning
Waiting for my day to start
Sick to my stomach over things I cannot control
Wind barely whispering
Through the leaves of trees
The sky is dark but
Light enough to be eerie
They say that in the loudest room in the world
A balloon popping sounds like
A bullet from a gun
Consonants from a whisper like
Knives slashing the air,
Nails on a chalkboard or
Something
It would drive me mad
I wonder if it’s anything like the noise
In my mind
At 10 at night
A hamster on its wheel
Running in the same place
Accomplishing nothing
Mind preventing sleep
From pouring over me like water over the edge
Of a cliff
start as more
or
common more
or
go in only
a few
show the chamber
smooth below
in some
even weakness
or
loss
I’m sorry for when I spit
blood in your direction
because someone else stuck
a knife in my heart.
She shivers every time, a quaking
