Awake to your whispers,
I leave bed, creep barefoot
to the cold darkroom to enlarge you,
duplicate you ten times.
"For your mother," you tell me
"each of you children, your children,
my sisters: in black and white,
fine fiber-based paper, double weight
eight by ten." You smile. Vanish.
Daddy, your fine wavy red hair, green eyes,
tiny brown freckles, translate badly
in zones of gray, yet the tilted stance,
teaser's smile, head tipped
too far forward; amazingly the same.
Working trancelike in the darkroom,
swiftly moving the slippery prints,
with delicate tongs in plastic trays
to the rhythm of the time-o-light -
like a ritual communing, a form of prayer:
standing attentive, focused, shivering,
the damp, sour room bathed
under golden safe light as I expose you.
Do you miss Saratoga Springs,
the trotters, where I shot the photo,
pickled herring for Sunday breakfast.
losing at ping pong, dancing the samba,
our exuberant pinochle games?
I rage to see your proud
six feet is reduced
to a paper image
six inches high,
caged in a frame.
If only you could have borne the small losses,
Cut back from your two packs of Camels,
half pint of Jack Daniel's, played less
than two sets of singles when the doctor ordered
"Easy" to repair your damaged heart.
I wanted to know you longer -
So I create a false image,
colorless, two dimensional.
At the enlarger, I focus,
expose. I turn to the trays.
Develop. Stop. Fix.
(A photographer's genuflection.)
I watch that smile,
appear in the tray,
first faint highlights,
then shadows begin to deepen.
Sandy Steinman began writing poems, essays, one-act plays and short stories when she returned to Marin County, CA, in 1990 after ten years of teaching Fine Art Photography at Fairfield University in Connecticut. Four of her short plays have been produced locally: two at the College of Marin Kentfield, CA and two at Dominican University in San Rafael, CA. Then and Now, a book of poems and prose, was completed and self-published in 1998 along with poet Larry Drake. She has had work in Lines in the Sand, The Writer’s Quill, The Shallow End, Amarillo Bay, The Adirondack Review, AntipodeanSF, Zimmerzine, Big Bridge, and Pulse. Last spring she was the dramaturg for Dominican University's production of 'The Merchant of Venice'. She enjoys gardening and grow tomatos and roses in the summer and attends and participates in poetry readings year round.
In this issue:
Esther Altshul Helfgott : Michelle
Cameron : Alison Daniel : Deborah
Finch : Jean Frances :
Fiona Robyn : Elisabeth
Spinks : Sandy Steinman : Tasha
: Tilotamma : Georgie
Young