Kirby Knowlton

i thought you had a summer home in barcelona       because i had seen pictures of you in front of la sagrada família        and knew your father had money. so maybe that’s why when i first met you i didn’t know what to say,    someone too worldly to have anything to learn from me. then there was your halloween party where i managed not to be in any of the photos.     perhaps it was for the best. upstairs,     on a couch i’ll never sit on again, an image of us has started to yellow:        me, blushing because    jamie lee curtis’s breasts are on screen, and you, nervous because all your other guests                            left us alone. nothing happened. at least for another year or so. sometimes it’s hard to guess how long film                 needs to be exposed. i wanted to get the colors right.

most of my regrets         have to do with water, light    filtered through shower curtain, your skin          like yellowed paper. i sat on bathroom                  tiles cold like clammy hands i didn’t want to hold and waited for you. i didn’t think to be embarrassed then. neither                           of us could sleep that night.        the floorboards creaked and    only now do i feel guilty about sneaking into bed with you. but that was months ago. in a room         i’ll never see again parts of us have begun to die. they say that every seven years your body replaces      each cell it has ever known. soon i will be new again. some nights in my dorm room i wake up crying and there’s nothing                          humble about it. when moonlight spills across    my bed like ilfosol-3, gets caught in my throat like a soreness, it isn’t because i miss you. rather, the dark room at my old high school where i used tongs to move your picture from one chemical bath to another. in a room i’ll never see again your face develops right in front of me. stop bath, 2014 by Allegra Lockstadt

under the gervais st. bridge, our voices domed   like a cathedral. shoulders dipped in sunlight, a baptism of sorts. we came to take pictures. searched for subjects like graffiti on piers, what my mother calls angel     rays in the sky,      that yellowed, humid glint in your eyes. maybe i ran out of film     or my batteries died      because when we finally found our shot, you used your iphone. neither of us have a right to decide what is holy.                       i told you i was almost a catholic baby, a half-lie i wanted to be true if only because i knew     you would be disappointed. there is no glory in either of our doubts: your face when i talked of  prayer, how walking across that bridge  back to your car,             i remembered that what gives a photo life is artificial light.