Look: the final print is wrong in the most honest way. Your shoulder is a waterfall of amber. The sky behind you has a pulse. We are not in this photograph— we are what escaped when the seal broke. R.G. leak. remember. ruin gently. End note on the frame: (A single strip of 35mm. At the bottom, scratched into the emulsion: “light leaks rg / don’t fix this.”)
R.G. In the darkroom, your initials bleed through the fixer. R for reappear . G for gone . I hold the negative up— you are all inversion now: your laugh a white scar, your hand a shadow against a window where the sun shouldn’t reach. light leaks rg
The film wasn’t loaded right. Or the back popped open on a July sidewalk— heat shivering up from asphalt. Light found its way in, as light always does. Look: the final print is wrong in the most honest way
digital poem / simulated 35mm film strip (The frame starts dark. Then—a crack of magenta, a thumbprint of sun.) We are not in this photograph— we are