The Photographer's Escape

 

The Photographer's Escape

The car is stuck mid-forest.
Leaves press against the face of my window,
the windshield, like the small palms of street children
at a red light. What do they want

so close to me where I can see the blood string
in their eyes, reticulate? I reach out, snap
the slender jugulars of creepers that hold tight
to the rearview mirror; slowly, edge
into the parking space of a great riverbank.

I have survived. Little can be said of my camera:
it has confused itself with prey, its eye wary
of the slightest animal breath, the smell of fish bones;
it looks small, even on a tripod,
as if poised on a skyscraper, about to jump.