ANNA JACKSON
The photographer’s hallway
The photographer likes to keep
her apartment uncluttered
so hangs every picture she ever buys
in the hallway and hosting a party
finds she can only relax
when her last guest has left
the apartment empty again. Standing
in the hall with her last guest
she finds she actually wants
to talk — ‘we might call
the hallway a hail-way’ — detaining
her guest by using the pictures
as ‘conversation pieces’.
She keeps her there
for half an hour and still
it seems her guest leaves in
a hurry deterred perhaps by her
come-hither eyes, though once home
the guest dreams not of her come-hither
eyes but the ‘with’ withheld
a hallway out of reach,
the recurring melting
of a chronic glacier.
Meanwhile the photographer remains
awake, unable to sleep not only
while there are dishes to wash
and put away, cushions to return
to their places, but while
there are still pictures
in the hallway — suddenly
she finds the hall too much
of a receptacle, determines
to stack everything
that was on display away
in rows on the floor
of her cavernous wardrobe.
her apartment uncluttered
so hangs every picture she ever buys
in the hallway and hosting a party
finds she can only relax
when her last guest has left
the apartment empty again. Standing
in the hall with her last guest
she finds she actually wants
to talk — ‘we might call
the hallway a hail-way’ — detaining
her guest by using the pictures
as ‘conversation pieces’.
She keeps her there
for half an hour and still
it seems her guest leaves in
a hurry deterred perhaps by her
come-hither eyes, though once home
the guest dreams not of her come-hither
eyes but the ‘with’ withheld
a hallway out of reach,
the recurring melting
of a chronic glacier.
Meanwhile the photographer remains
awake, unable to sleep not only
while there are dishes to wash
and put away, cushions to return
to their places, but while
there are still pictures
in the hallway — suddenly
she finds the hall too much
of a receptacle, determines
to stack everything
that was on display away
in rows on the floor
of her cavernous wardrobe.
The photographer’s Olympics
The photographer has a friend
she sometimes sleeps with who instead
is watching the Olympics, something
of no interest to the photographer
until the women’s triathlon screens
and she is entranced
by the sight of the women’s arms
lifting and rising in and out of the water
black like eels in a swarm
curling and calling
one to another — she wishes
the screen would remain full of the arms
and nothing but the arms for the duration
of the race. Although she stays put
on the sofa and watches the chase group of cyclists
catch up and absorb the lead group, and
goes on to watch the last of the breakaway runners
fall behind, the four in front take their places
at the finish line, it is the screen-shot
of arms rising and falling she sees as she falls
asleep that night and for night after night
to come. It is all
she wants to photograph but the stills
are nothing without the movement
and so for the first time
she takes to photographing faces,
the stills betraying an extremity of
emotion not apparent
on the move. This
is the worst disaster of her career —
this photographing faces, this creation
of ‘portraits’ — the word makes her want
to throw up in the sink, having woken
early full of a dread the exact equivalent
of that dark and sinuous mass of arms
rising and falling on the screen.
she sometimes sleeps with who instead
is watching the Olympics, something
of no interest to the photographer
until the women’s triathlon screens
and she is entranced
by the sight of the women’s arms
lifting and rising in and out of the water
black like eels in a swarm
curling and calling
one to another — she wishes
the screen would remain full of the arms
and nothing but the arms for the duration
of the race. Although she stays put
on the sofa and watches the chase group of cyclists
catch up and absorb the lead group, and
goes on to watch the last of the breakaway runners
fall behind, the four in front take their places
at the finish line, it is the screen-shot
of arms rising and falling she sees as she falls
asleep that night and for night after night
to come. It is all
she wants to photograph but the stills
are nothing without the movement
and so for the first time
she takes to photographing faces,
the stills betraying an extremity of
emotion not apparent
on the move. This
is the worst disaster of her career —
this photographing faces, this creation
of ‘portraits’ — the word makes her want
to throw up in the sink, having woken
early full of a dread the exact equivalent
of that dark and sinuous mass of arms
rising and falling on the screen.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anna Jackson lives in Island Bay, Wellington, and lectures in the English programme at Victoria University. She has published four collections of poetry with Auckland University Press, and the poems in Turbine will be included in a fifth collection forthcoming in 2014.