At the right angle, a girl 

becomes an aperture. 

Flooded with light. A mouth 

in the shape of another mouth. 

A memory etched in nitrate, naked

& scratchable. Late summer, late bloom.

Your chest in the sun, ribbon bowed over bone.

You look down at yourself and vanish.

His hands don’t leave any shadows. 

In the right light, this is romantic. 

Go frame by frame. Still miss the moment 

when you could have left the scene,

could have cut out your desire for desire.

To reel, to be sliced into frames,

isn’t this what it means 

to be a girl, to be wanted?

So much light, so much skin. Enough

that you can hardly bear to look at it—

easier to wind the tape back again, to dissolve.

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