It looks like a snapshot

from our vacation last year

to the recreators’ faire

in the next shire over,

where experience teaches

how to ignore cameras.

 

Except for Maggie Clinton,

rightmost of the seated “girls”

(all of them adult women),

unable to ignore the camera,

or else its handsome holder,

down through the centuries.

 

Yes, dear Maggie, you’re seen.

If the superstitious can fear

that cameras can steal souls,

then why should young suitors

fail to understand the truth:

A woman’s eyes steals hearts.

 

(after the circa 1890 photograph, “Girls Skaning Mussels,” by Frank Sutcliffe)