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Available Light
- Red Hen Press
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65 Available Light Walter and Ann Major: taken in June of 1964, Minolta Autocord, available light Available light shines from the bright places: whites of eyes, blond hair on his arms, gold cross glinting at your neck. You look like someone on TV; he is handsome as an astronaut. Your lips are pursed as if saying: can we? do you? will it? His eyes are fixed on distance, one arm propped on a folding chair. It must be an Extension Office picnic, something that requires a pressed shirt, a sleeveless linen shift. Half-tone print, I know where to shade green: tree line in the background blurred; John Deere tractor, wagon parked; mown field tramped by guests. But the rest is lost: What color was his shirt, your dress? Was there music, words of welcome? What was his answer? Eight months pregnant, you will not eat. And he will make a plate but not get to it, constant interruption of well-wishes, advice 66 and consolation on the progress of tobacco, hay. But this moment endures so that forty years later, when the town gossip, tall and blond and loose with talk happens to stop by, her face dark, afternoon light behind her brilliant, just to say to me: I heard your mother was the prettiest woman in Anderson County. I can prove it: Here. Here is the photograph, what she was trying to ask. ...