Portrait of Houdini with Wife

The pleasure of contrast: not chained up in an oilcoth sack underwater, holding his breath, but composing himself for the camera, in his only suit. You have to understand photography— unforgiving mirror, unlike oils that soften the hard edges of a man’s face if you want them to, or velvet curtain shielding the pine box during an escape. The audience imagines his bones contracting to a splinter. That’s not at all how it’s done— the camera’s lens blanketed by cloth to keep it in the dark; any halo of light ruptures the film with shadow. His eyes already turn inward to that place we’re going. She thinks about escape too: at the horse butcher, in line like the others, or arguing over the price of bread at the Market of Innocents. Adam’s rib is forever hidden inside her chest as the force of blows hibernates in a boxer’s fist, but she, at least, is smiling when he says, We have such a small family, meaning your body won’t open to me—it’s shackled inside its cage: love and rage, whose bars are meant to be broken.