Poems by Adam Theron-Lee Rensch, New York City

photo by Juliette Viera

In a Box, A Photograph

In the dark room, the camera obscura, negatives enlarge under red light. In between exposing paper & placing it in developer, a latent image exists but can’t be seen. It’s a time of pure potential, an image waiting patiently to expose itself, to be strengthened with silver. Under the right conditions, a latent image can exist for months, for years. I could photograph my father, push light through the negative, & place the latent image in a drawer until he dies. After his funeral, when our eyes are sore & the ground is soft, I could open the drawer & develop the image. Slowly, patiently, my father will be born again. He will reappear from the darkness, the same man he always was, ready for the light.

An Investigation of Light

Photograph a city at night. A longer exposure is needed, & because of what little light is available, certain objects will fail to appear on the negative, as if they were never there. Only streetlamps & stoplights will show up, stars reflecting the rotation of the earth, cars becoming beams of red light all tangled together like veins. The man who steps in front of the camera, walking, dodging the lens, his guilt is transparent. He has no light. My mother always told me not to stare at the sun, that I might go blind. I thought that maybe the sun was just too bright, but now I know it has something to do with the universe, the way the sun never moves, shining its light on a world forever turning, turning to look away.

Vanishing Twin

Egg whites were once used in the emulsion of photographic paper. They were called albumen. The purpose of the egg white, for an egg, is to protect the yolk, to provide nutrients for the embryo, to help it grow. On paper, this clear liquid is used to help capture light, to nurture an image, to cradle it, a child of the sun. The doctors told my mother that I should have been a twin, that the eggs joined & formed one instead of staying as two. I think of my twin, my brother, every time I print on paper. I imagine that the albumen of his egg is on my hands each time I hold the print, & that maybe, if I touch it enough, I can dip my hands in chemicals, run out into day & expose them to light, & from my open palms he will grow, a child of the sun, wondering why I am so much older.