smoke exhales from underground streets,
the breath of the City,
winter magnifying the image:
click.
image woman
framed me under the Washington Square Archway,
grabbing my reflection through her lens:
an obscure frontier poem
about a guy with shaggy sideburns and tall spurs
sailing to Marseille to rendezvous with a dancer…
click.
her resolve:
to untangle images while not sacrificing distance…
to merge abstract forms with blessed Manhattan nights…
flash.
focus:
a well sorted stranger paddling down Amsterdam Avenue
like a drunken sailor fighting the undertow…
develop.
repertoire:
prints capturing subway riders wearing rococo corsets
steaming through uptown latte sidewalks,
jaywalkers smoking joints in the pretzel-vendered air…
posted.
then, surrounded by dozens of imperfect portraits
whizzing past her senses,
alone in the darkroom,
she remains the prey
pondering whether her images are even germane,
kindred to what these street poems
demand from these photographs.
NYC
1984