photograph and words collaboration #2, Sophie Fontaine and mikl paul

(photo by sophie fontaine, words by mikl paul)

“If you just look at me, we will know.”

 

But she doesn’t, but she cannot. The threat of salt pillars, the threat

of the long stare home, she cannot. she says

 

“This is impossible.”

 

He moves as though to touch her.

 

“I  almost began to touch you.”

 

Center shudder, memory colliding with the standing still and what

familiar hands become when the heart is such a stranger and aware;

this fabric is so thin, aware; of the bareness beneath, each. she says

 

“I know what this is, and I love what this is. But I cannot remember

what it was when we arrived here.”

 

She almost turns to him, corner of the eye wet with sudden rain.

 

“Do you remember?”

 

“If you would only look at me.”

 

“It like weather that betrays what you needed today to be.”

 

“Please just turn around.”

 

“It’s a forgetting, and you aren’t to blame. And our bodies aren’t

to blame.”

 

“Please.”

 

“I forgot I was someone whole, before you arrived.”