The Photographer

You could hardly breathe, every time

he came around. You saw his tall, imposing

figure and naturally your throat

would constrict, you would shrink so

impossibly small you could fit into the

center of a shuttered rose.

Or would grow so bold you could look

a ravenous tiger in the eye. It was

a sort of magic that only

he had. He never looked at what you

were wearing, or how you'd

styled your hair - he was more interested in

the way the light struck your face, the

angles at which you stood, the depth of field.

Things you barely understood. You were

forced to stand and sit for hours

on end, while he circled you slowly. It excited

you, his predatory prowl. To him it was

merely routine. To you -

The raison d'etre.

You were content to let him work. You

never once thought to interfere with

the genius you saw in those

confident workings of his hands, his intelligent

eyes. So you

remained obediently still under the

instantaneous flashes of the bulb,

under his scrutinizing gaze, in spite

of the little pieces of you he was

taking away with him, the glossy

framed 4R portraits too slippery to

contain your feelings. You saw them sliding off

in the darkroom, merging into rounded drops

of liquids to plunge to tiny details from hanging easels into

cold trays of silent water.

And so you said nothing, while

he struggled with objectivity

and loved you behind lenses.