I Know
The names.
I know the names and don’t need to write them down
They’re imprinted on my mind
I’ve preserved this photograph carefully
Because it’s almost all, she left behind.
The photo is black and white.
Taken by an old camera with a flashlight
With accordion-pleat nozzles and leather cases
A photo that was taken in the soft afternoon light.
They’re sitting under a tree that may have been an apple
She didn’t notice it much at the time
She’s wearing a white blouse rolled to the elbow
that appears in the gears of a shrine.
There must have been a breeze.
As the blouse clings to her slim body and shows
The feminine lines of her clinging breasts
As the glisten on their skin’s glows.
Holding my hand over the picture
I can still feel the heat coming from it
Like the heat from a sun-warmed stone
by her cool hand at midnight.
The man is wearing a light-coloured hat
Angled down, partially shading his face
His face appears more darkly tanned than hers
Though the deep shadows hardly leave a trace.
She’s turned half towards him and smiling.
In a way, she can’t remember smiling at anyone since
She looks young in the photo, too young
And he’s smiling like a lost prince.
His white teeth flash like a scratched match flaring
But he’s holding up his hand as if to fend her in play
Or else to protect himself from the camera
From the photographer, it’s too hard to say.
Or else to protect himself from those in the future
Who might be looking in at him through this square?
The lighted window of glazed paper
As if trying to protect himself from being there.
In his outstretched protecting hand
The smoke curls across his shaded eyes
From the stub of a cigarette
Part of the man’s intricate disguise.
She investigates the deep pool of the photo.
Searching beyond her reflection for something lost
Looking for something else, she may have dropped
Lying in the pool obscured and embossed.
It seems to be out of reach
But it is still there and visible
Shimmering like a jewel on sand
Then disappearing and invisible.
She examines every detail.
His fingers were bleached by the flash or suns glare
The folds of their clothing, the leaves of the tree
And the small round shapes hanging there.
Were they apples after all?
The course grass in the foreground
The grass was yellow the weather had been dry
Then something else was found.
Over to one side, you couldn’t see it at first.
There’s a hand-cut by the margin scissored off at the wrist
Left on the grass as if discarded
Left to its own devices but there and to not be dismissed.
The trace of brown cloud in the brilliant sky
Like ice cream smudged on chrome
His smoke-stained fingers, the distant glint of water
All drowned now drowned but shining alone.
I know the names, and the closer I look
I disappear into a long lost time
When things were so different
The girl that I thought was mine.
©
David Rudder
2022
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