Images from a cogged box.
A camera reveals
hips and ankles, ribbons
decorously draped
over a contrived modesty.
An artist has added a color tint,
their cheeks are rosy,
their lips red,
a patchwork of painted glow.
Half revealed bosoms flush and bloom.
Pauses in an upper room.
A warm lamp licks,
feathers and brocade are adjusted.
The girls choreograph
next moves.
A gentleman photographer
toggles knurled brass knobs
throws a veiling drape over
his head and mind.
The models are beyond
this moments capture,
they are sealed by silence,
yet their images,
their one-act legacy,
is an amber inclusion
raised up as a photograph
for all to admire in secret.
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.
Women dipped in inks.
Images from a cogged box.
A camera reveals
hips and ankles, ribbons
decorously draped
over a contrived modesty.
An artist has added a color tint,
their cheeks are rosy,
their lips red,
a patchwork of painted glow.
Pauses in an upper room.
A warm lamp licks,
feathers and brocade are adjusted,
the girls choreograph
next moves.
A gentleman photographer
throws a veiling curtain over
his head and mind.
The models are beyond
this moments capture,
they are sealed by silence.
Yet their images,
their one-act legacy,
is an amber inclusion
raised up as a photograph
for all to admire in secret.
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