A Vintage Viewing

Images from a cogged apparatus. Fingertips toggle milled brass abreast a concertinaing leather. Tripodal spread, pegged legs. Women paused in pose, a gilded stillness. A plump bosom peek-show. Wide-open lens revealing knee’s, and ankles, silky ribbons; lace decorously draped over a connivance of modesty. A gentleman photographer throws a dark curtain over his head. The models are captured framed as they are inside a light-box of silence. An artist has added a color tint, their cheeks are rouged lips glossily red. A luster and filigree of bygone corsetry teases the eye. Posturing in an upper room. A warm lamp licks Tiffany shades, shadows halted in mid-flicker. Feathers and brocade adjusted, imagination moves, veils fall, flesh flexes. Their legacy a démodé, an optical glow from a yesteryear, one to be admired in secret.