If photos held like skin

 

If all the photos spilled open what would be the fluid
and odors? What would be the viscosity of those moments
held in cut shapes away?

There is that crowd of strangers that each used these hands
and these eyes in that odd hotel of body and years.

The handicapped boy is a sweet stranger with that blonde bowl cut.
The pimply gawky teen stares outward from places razed by fires and new buildings now,
shorn by the edge of decades.
The young man looks out from things tethered but slipping from the once familiar.

If all these photos held moments like water and if all were to suddenly bloom or burst
open it would be a crowd of strangers but now of vapors, of scents yet still all of past, itself as a word
to carry its own strange perfume.

 

 

Jeremy Hight has an MFA in Creative Writing from Cal Arts. His book “What Remains” (published by Free Dogma Press) is a short story collection composed by taking all tech and sci-fi out of sci-fi films and taking what remains into prose. He has a book of poems created by recalling incomplete memories coming out soon. He teaches Creative Writing and English Comp and lives with his soul mate Lisa and his amazing cat Samson.