Photographs #81 Claine Keily

To tell
something never told
she moved away
from her proof reading
sipped wine
closed her address book
then looked away

I am afraid of
photographs she told him
the kind that look
as though taken by
the light of candles
or worse still
as though the person in them
is covered in wax

She told him
that before the time
of such photography
in which all the people
in the pictures looked
as though they had been dragged through snow
she had felt hopeful
attended parties even

Now she preferred
to stay home
and define herself
by writing stories
and sending them
to the people listed
in her files