photographs
FADWA AHMED
[pdf]
I AM NOT GOING TO RUN
The sky is not purple, but it
used to be
a moment
only localized
by angles between these branches,
minus their direction:
that is, everything would be flat
if we were to attempt such a
vivisection, and then it is
dissecting. The field of vision
we are working with here is
not large. Most of what you see is getting here,
forgetting to hear here, and when
you were wearing your glasses.
Mother is worrying about you
doing this exact thing right now: not taking
this photograph, but remembering
how to keep track by realizing
you know how tobacco tastes now
it is old and the sky is not
purple.
All footsteps are the same speed except if you are wearing high heels.
For three days
I’ve been waiting for the sinking to
ask me to come to the bar
Monday night
so I can say No. While I wait,
two men sit side by side. One becomes
old when I sit down across from him.
The young one has been taking
a series of photographs of me
taking photographs of if
my divorcee was here which he is
sometimes and will be forever: staring and
typing at me. Tension is tricking
us into thinking it is vulnerability.
Footsteps are three and a half floors away
even when they are not
and so is the piano.
Contrary to common intuition, everything is bigger in a big room.
Humming keeps things from being
all the way exposed. I hum back
at the big room that hums at me
and I drop my jaw. I do a dance
on the big stage and everyone
watches, scouts and
skunks and the trees,
if they are moving today.
If I blink, there will be a blink
that makes the big room a
dark room, and I don’t have time
for sinking into a dark room right now,
so I let leaving take a picture
of the lawful humming that doesn’t let anything begin
or end all the way.
My lower back, when I learn to use it, won’t be so becoming. 19 LAPS
is the name of this photograph. It is
the name of everything in this hallway in this
photograph when it scratches the wall. It’s the name of stealing
bulbous whispers.
The girl omitted from the photograph
was already a photograph. I either haven’t even finished one lap or
am one away from nineteen when I see
her stare at me a second time.
It is a photograph of
writing I backwards and showing you
that it spells sinking.