The Photojournalist

The photograph in our living room,
of men on satin horses with blades raised,
in the dust and afternoon sun
is of war. reenacted.
You shot it before your breakdown.

It was in Rwanda.
You were running to safety,
when a young boy’s eyes caught yours,
and he asked you to adopt him as your son.
For a second you saw an image of your childless apartment in Queens,
with a writer wife who could barely manage you,
It was an unfinished thought,
but you turned and boarded the moving bus
leaving him behind in a cloud of exhaust.

And you kept running.
You didn’t pick up your camera again for two years
as if you had something to confess, but couldn’t name it.

None of your mythic pictures
photographs that went deep into her green eyes,
the pink sands and whitewashed houses of distant deserts
had ever asked anything of you in return.

They say the stories that can’t be told are wept,
and you wept in her white arms,
on couches and over your drink.
You forgot his face, shelved your fame,
and shame was a coat you drew around yourself.

Until a morning by a window.
You were fixing your tea,
when a yellow butterfly landed on a sunflower.

You reached for your camera,
and your coat was turned inside out to face the sun.
and just like that you were back,
you let yourself be overcome.