A Photograph – The Poetry Marathon

It has to be in sepia, with some of the lighter parts

fading into some past century.

I simply can’t imagine you in colour. Disney characters

live on colour, are shaped by colour. You, by contrast,

I associate with scent, if sepia has any scent.

If it has, then the scent of rosewood, as in an antique

box. Mahogany doesn’t smell of anything, it is simply

dark, but not as dark as ebony. Your features are dark

enough, too dark to make out.

Except your eyes, which would be almost charcoal.

Almost. What would really be dark would be your

eyebrows. The sepia would soften them.

And the rosewood? For your hair, perhaps? It would be

shorter than mine. The colour of dark henna, but

henna has its own scent. That wouldn’t do, unless sepia

and henna go together. Yes, that might do the trick.

Rosewood would have been too much. I would end up

thinking of your arms, which have never embraced me,

or your shoulders. Even without having ever met you,

I can’t really think of you as a rose.