Prick of the Spindle: Poetry: Hartwich: Photograph

Photograph
by Scott Hartwich

         

         

        This so like the underside of grief,
        yet nothing like this stretching out 

         

        beyond place where delicate crumbles
        between finger and thumb,

         

        the feeling of empty as when you
        finish the last drop of something 

         

        nectarous and there won't be more,
        but each time I swear off habitual 

         

        you slide into it with no thought
        for consequence, or remedy, only

         

        your pulse sluggish from heart 
        to extremity and how cold will you

         

        grow from the medium of want?
        As cold as your sun, the reply.

         

                                *

         

        If we were suspended
        by our own arms we could subsist.

         

        If what you blew into me bloomed 
        into an opening past the tunnel 

         

        of your eyes I might understand. 
        But these petals are you, crisp 

         

        and fragrant and wholly beyond 
        my reach and even as I rub them 

         

        between my palms the wind
        takes them like chaff and spreads

         

        this small miracle into a thin song, 
        trailing off into the ether.

         

                                 *

         

        Now you hold this photograph: 
        fragile with age, coated with dust 

         

        from thoughts turned grime 
        by the mundane detail. You study 
         
         

        the balance of light and shadow.
        Smooth the blackened edges, consider

         

        whether to share. Whether what's 
        pictured will stand another witness.

         

        Careful, I'm saying. Careful with that.
        We must make it last. But when you

         

        hold the match to it, as the flames 
        creep toward your fingers and frame 

         

        your face in this awful afterglow, 
        I choose, finally, to let it burn.

Scott Hartwich drives a little bus for a living in Bellingham, Washington, where he also coedits a new journal called Greatcoat. His work has appeared in Colorado Review, Diagram, Cue: A Journal of Prose Poetry and countless other journals. By countless he means a few.