Amber Rose Crowtree

Conditions of a Darkroom

Cameraman, why do you hide inside your
black and white eye, behind your tombstone
images, beyond the focus of night?
You reek of color. It sticks like pollen
that you’ve shrunken into your lens.
You’ve convinced me the only color is red,
that I am the reason you return, but
why do you bring me flowers in halves?
Trees are not trees but bark, without bodies.
Our visitors are not whole people:
hands, mouths, ears, and shadows. You’ll pour
them developer, fix, and stop. They’ll drink
till’ they go drunk, then you’ll hang each
one by clothespins on that aging-string, to dry.
You’ll leave me in the red-dark with them,
alone, to the sick sound of their dripping.

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Amber Rose Crowtree is the author and cover-artist of two poetry chapbooks: Harboring the Imperfect (Dancing Girl Press, 2021) and The Inviolable Hours (Finishing Line Press, 2021). She grew up on the coast of Downeast, Maine and currently lives in rural New Hampshire.