The Photograph

I don’t recognize myself; this is not uncommon, but he seems to me like a pale root dragged-up to be exposed to sooty clouds; one raw and unearthed by quarrying shadows. A grainy tinge shades vacant eyes. In the distance, tenement towers - grey tusks in a monochrome sky. A callus of light embalms a sallow horizon, revealing just enough of the child to spook the dead.