It’s the Polaroid wet gray if potential color and
the way you surface through a shadow, then
a blur, then flecks of color like the things
you do, the glint of teeth when you say hurry
up, take the goddamn picture already,
through a stiff yet genuine smile. A flash
of shiny white, you hold your grin like sharks’ teeth,
lose one and another follows. Click grind and
you’re in my hand, flat and gray. I wave
it around to dry, the colors emerging, the
colors that are never quite right. Where subtleties are
reds and oranges like street signs, stop, yield, right of way.
On the page you have corpse white skin and I can’t help
but notice that it looks pornographic, but with your clothes
on. I write 2/4 on the white band underneath you and leave it
at that. I always trust I’ll remember, even as the nameless
photos collect and I ignore the black captions in my head,
the ones that say “that girl” and “oh, you know, him.” I
always think I’ll hold the names forever, pressed
between plastic and paper like chemical goo.
It doesn’t run, it evaporates.
