Available Light
–Robert Wrigley
And what would I do with another pictureof her nude? The one I have I shown to no one,
not even her anymore,
for fear she mightwant them back, or worse. But the one
I regret not taking most was that hotsummer night I rose for
a drink of water,not even noticing at first I was alone,
until, in the hallway of the too-small house
we lived in then, I saw
her fully extendedon our son’s bed. He had a summer cold
and a little lifelong jones for the breast.
He was two, almost.
He’s been fussy from the
heat,so she went to him there, and then there
she was too, sleeping – and all her long back,
head to heel.In my half-wakefulness I
stood, cipheringsuch a photograph’s mechanics: tripod, cable release,
the long moon- and night-lighted, sepia-
toned exposure….When I told her years
later how close I’d come,she said I should have, it would have been fine,
and there lies the source of my regret: her late permission.
Though I think of it now
only as I slip the othersfrom the safe place they’re hidden in,
six in all: three along a mountain river;
one in a galvanized tub
at the hot springs;another, fishing from the shore of a mountain lake, in sunglasses –
and then the absent one, framed by the doorway:
on the nearest edge of a
twin bed,a stuffed bear looking on from the cast-off sheets,
the rasping boy out of sight on the other side of her,
and a particular sheen
on her skin, as ifshe’d been basted or entirely, relentlessly kissed,
even the bottoms of her slender, delectable feet
aglow.
Photo by Ibrahim Rifath on Unsplash