I did half my work
in a lightless room
where touch reigned
as the primary sense
and smell was a miasma mix
between a morgue and
a cruet of oil and vinegar.
And I reveled in it.
But to get there I stored lives
in a one-eyed jewel box
full of light and imagination,
accompanied by the song
of its mechanical acolyte
mirror kuh-lacking
and the squinting blink
of its shutter shih-flicking.
And in that captured moment,
my view of life disappeared,
blinded with hope and
exposed to everyone but me.
Later in that room of black,
when I revealed my vision
to myself, I never felt
so illuminated.
I remember those days
more often since time’s
blindfolded and muffled me.
Their visions and echoes
glow radiant, as does
this dream portrait of you
I’ve kept in vivid
Black and White.