5: Silver Baths and Time

To what do I owe the kind of shame

I feel when the shutter closes on my mind

fully clothed?

My dignity remains intact, even my modesty

but still the buzz of reflection makes a hive of my own

thoughts.

Do I? Don’t I?

These are executive things for me.

The photographs are already shot

but pictures have yet to materialize.

In the dark, in the mystery, I theorize.

I am spreading my chest open in these frames:

Here I live and yet I die.

Should I purposefully expose this too soon

and leave myself and my critics blind?

Or should I leave the film in the bath

and simply forget

about the light

that exposes all

my lies.