Camera

Camera Once I found a camera, swept up on a beach. I picked seaweed off it like strands of hair, unwashed. A crab’s claw, no body of note, clasped the shutter as if protector, a titan from the deep: the memories caught within secret. The screen flittered and buzzed, popped into life and suddenly I was married - a wife, brown skinned, plaits down to shoulder, and had children - twins, sobbing eyes clenched against a flash. I’d painted a nursery - cot, blinds, seahorse mural, and cooked Christmas lunch – steam frozen above a turkey, crackers caught in a silent bang. Before the light fizzled and faded, before that life dimmed, I’d swum with dolphins too, held a sunset, liquid orange balancing, inside a palm; even snapped the inside of a backpack, contents blurred. The screen dissolved. I returned it to the sea, but not before adding one empty click of me.