Comparisons

Photos tossed in a box, old black and white prints. A forest somewhere north of here, a figure by a stream, a lake at midday, faces too close to distinguish who is who and where. The edges curled. The surface glossy, matt, reduced to sepia if I turn over and over, massaging the details to reveal some fact, clue, necessity, identity. The old itself is old, worn on the edges. I won’t turn on the camera today. It sees too much, gathers information, repeats itself. I could shoot my own face, in the mirror, against the wall, in the garden. It wouldn’t show much more than you already see. Skin, eyes, lips, hair. An expression without focus, placing an image out there, in the shallow eddies before comprehension.

Andrea Moorhead

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