Lanesville

by Elizabeth Hoover

Photography is an oath to silence, so I gave up
on faces one summer in Lanesville.  The light wrapping
her body like a sweet nurse in an old play.  It curled
around her breast so you knew from looking how
it felt to pass your palm over it, to hold its weight
in your hand.  There was something else, something
she held just behind her eyes.  I never captured it
though I took dozens of rolls and soothed the red screen
wicker left on the back of her legs with my tongue.
But you want me to talk of this photo here —
a sign painter bending to wet his brush — a neat
compositional trick with a black stripe —
I think I loved her, even if it was just
from behind my pocket – sized wall of glass.